Hits & Misses

MTN suffers setback in Nigeria but RCL reforms hatch a profit

POULTRY producer RCL Foods reported a 50% jump in full-year profits, saying the restructure of its chicken business and growth in its grocery unit helped it improve its performance. Diluted headline earnings per share (HEPS) rose to 94.5c for the year to June, from 63c the previous year.

STEINHOFF International Holdings said a three-year deal agreed on with creditors and a series of asset disposals had secured the immediate future of the global retailer and its 120,000-strong workforce.

THE absence of significant catastrophelinked claims — in contrast to the Knysna fire in June 2017 — helped Santam report a 46% jump in net profit for the first half of its financial year. Sanlam’s short-term insurance subsidiary reported net profit of R1.2bn compared with R808m in the matching period. HEPS grew 72% to R10.18.

MTN Group shares plunged as much as 25% to a nine-year low on Thursday, a day after Nigeria ordered the telecoms group to repatriate $8.1bn (R118bn) the authorities say was illegally sent abroad. The central bank’s demand is the

latest setback for MTN in Nigeria, the South African group’s most lucrative but increasingly also its most problematic market.

SA has discovered the polyphagous shot hole borer, a tiny beetle that drills holes in trees and leaves behind a deadly fungus, in pecan trees in the Northern Cape. The beetle is a threat to a range of crops in SA, as

well as grapevines, the department of agriculture, forestry& fisheries said.

GROWTH in credit granted to the private sector slowed in July, undershooting market expectations. Privatesector credit extension grew at an annual rate of 5.41%, from June’s 5.68%, Reserve Bank data showed.