Hits&Misses
Rising prices put shine on Amplats, Astral chokes on maize spike
ANGLO American Platinum expects headline earnings per share for the year to endDecember to as much as double from the prior comparative period, thanks to a boost from rising commodity prices. Full-year headline earnings per share will rise 83%-103% compared to the prior period's R14.82, it said.
THE resilience of Cape Town’s hotel market has surprised experts who thought 2018’s drought and water restrictions would have driven visitors elsewhere. Data released by STR Global showed the market ended 2018 with a 65% occupancy compared with 69.5% in 2017 and a decline of only 0.7% in rooms sold.
MTN said full-year earnings rose as Africa’s largest wireless carrier by subscribers shrugs off an ongoing tax dispute in Nigeria to report growth across its 21 markets. Earnings per share, excluding some one-time items, were at least 20% higher than the R1.82 in 2017, the company said.
ASTRAL Foods, the JSE’s biggest poultry producer, issued a dour trading update, warning of “significantly lower" 2019 first-quarter profit. Lower consumer demand and a higher maize price, which is a key production input in the poultry sector, look set to hamper its profitability in the first half of the financial year.
MINES in SA are seen as a benefit by only 13% of people who live in their proximity, a report on the industry’s social impact said. Four out of five people see no positive impact at all and 8% said mines brought “sickness, dispossession and damages”, ActionAid said in the report.
PPC said an “uncharacteristically weak” December, along with “subdued construction activity”, was behind a fall in cement sales for the nine months to end-December. Volumes were down 2%-3% and average prices rose only 1%-2% in Southern Africa.