Hits&Misses MultiChoice offers separate soccer but retail trade shrinks

MULTICHOICE will offer subscribers a standalone live English Premier League soccer plan on mobile phones, for R69 a month, as part of its revamped Showmax video streaming platform. Last year the pay-TV group partnered with Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Sky to relaunch the Showmax streaming service, which will be built on NBCUniversal’s

Peacock streaming platform.

TYMEBANK, which is eying a top-three position in the retail banking sector, said this week it reached its first month of profitability in December 2023, less than five years since launching in February 2019. CEO Coenraad Jonker said profitability had been achieved “in a significantly shorter time frame” than expected.

CONVERGENCE

Partners, founded by Andile Ngcaba, has bought technology firm Datacentrix, which was owned by Alviva. Ngcaba said Datacentrix aligns with Convergence’s digital infrastructure fund strategy of investing in high-growth companies with strong management teams and deep customer and vendor relationships.

RETAIL trade shrank in November, in line with market expectations, reflecting households’ continuing battle with high interest rates and declining real income. Stats SA data published on Wednesday shows retail trade shrank 0.9% year on year in November 2023. October’s data was revised to a decline of 2.3%, slightly better than the initial 2.5% contraction reported.

LUXURY retailer Richemont painted a mixed picture of the sector in its latest results on Thursday as sales fell in Europe but rose sharply in China. The Swiss-based company said sales in constant currencies, which remove foreign exchange fluctuations, fell 3% in Europe as higher sales to Chinese tourists and domestic customers failed to offset spending cuts by travellers generally, particularly from the US.

AUTOMOTIVE company Motus expects profit to drop as much as 30% in the six months to endDecember, as a result of lower demand, high inflation in vehicle and parts prices and excess stock from car manufacturers. Headline earnings per share are likely to drop to between R6.30 and R7.30 compared with R9.16 a year earlier, Motus said in a trading update.