COMPANY NEWS IN BRIEF

Sasol speeding up green hydrogen plansEurope’s scramble to find new sources of energy to reduce its reliance on Russia has given Sasol, South Africa’s biggest fuel producer, a new purpose to accelerate its green hydrogen plans.Sasol is focusing on green hydrogen - made by machines called electrolyzers that are powered by the wind and sun, in South Africa’s northwest coast. The company is doing a feasibility study that it expects to complete in two years, according to Sasol’s Chief Executive Officer Fleetwood Grobler.“The impetus for renewables like hydrogen has gone up a couple of notches in the last two months,” Grobler said in an interview. “What in my mind changes is that we should move quicker and faster on our hydrogen plays.”The surge in energy demand can help Sasol, which has been converting coal into synthetic products for more than half a century, pivot to cleaner fuels faster. South Africa’s second-biggest polluter didn’t even have a plan to transition to green energy until a little over a year ago, Grobler said. It is now - like Shell and TotalEnergies - targeting to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.The invasion of Ukraine has Europe searching for new energy sources to starve Russia of funds to fuel the war. Green hydrogen will be an important part of the mix.-Fin24MTN aims to dominate fintech servicesMTN says it is seeing great opportunities in Africa&#039;s nascent digital economy and is building "distinctly African" services and products.The company&#039;s newly released annual report for the 2021 financial year offers a glimpse into its strategic plans for the fintech industry, whose revenue in the same period grew 30.9% to R15.9 billion. Digital and fintech services include among other things value-added services, Mobile Money, insurance, airtime lending and e-commerce."The company is positioning itself as a dominant player in fintech services, and we are building the largest and most valuable platforms that are distinctly African digital marketplaces for the widest variety of products and services," it said.The Mobile Money (MoMo) service, which has a strong footprint in Nigeria, the company&#039;s largest market, is venturing into full banking services, after it was granted a banking licence this year.MoMo offers MTN users a platform to send and receive cash, and users can also pay for products and services from participating merchants using the mobile app. Mobile money has gained traction in markets outside South Africa, where mainstream banking services are not established. -Fin24Sibanye CEO awarded R300 mln in 2021Sibanye-Stillwater CEO Neal Froneman was awarded an astounding R300 million in 2021, the company&#039;s annual report shows.The group&#039;s recently released annual suite of reports shows the platinum mining executive took home a whopping R300.3 million in remuneration for the year ended in 2021 – an extraordinary amount even compared with his remuneration of R62.73 million in 2020.While Froneman was awarded a basic salary of R12.42 million in 2021, plus an R7.8 million cash bonus, an added R264 million was paid over to the CEO from conditional share proceeds.The group&#039;s executive directors and prescribed officers too enjoyed a bumper payday with remuneration, including Froneman&#039;s, totalling R804.9 million – 84% of which resulted from conditional share proceeds.The company has grown from strength to strength under Froneman, who was appointed CEO in 2013 when the business was formed out of Gold Fields&#039; old South African gold mines. -Fin24Musk to buy Twitter for R690 billionSouth African-born billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk agreed to buy Twitter for US$44 billion (R690 billion), using one of the biggest leveraged buyout deals in history to take private a 16-year-old social networking platform that has become a hub of public discourse and a flashpoint in the debate over online free speech.Investors will receive US$54.20 for each Twitter share they own, the company said in a statement on Monday. The price is 38% more than the stock’s close on April 1, the last business day before Musk disclosed a significant stake in the company, sparking a share rally. Twitter shares were halted for the news.Musk, who has more than 83 million followers on Twitter, began amassing shares in the company in January, disclosing a 9% stake earlier this month. That position got him invited to join Twitter’s board, an offer he ultimately rejected, only to turn around on April 14 with an unsolicited bid to buy the company and take it private. His proposal was met with skepticism on Wall Street because, while he said it was his "best and final" offer, it lacked any details on financing. Even though Musk is the world’s richest person, much of his fortune is tied up in Tesla stock. Twitter adopted a poison pill as a measure to prevent Musk from buying up more than 15% of the company, while giving the board more time to consider his bid and plot its next move.-Fin24Sasria expects to make a R26bn lossThe South African Special Risks Insurance Association (Sasria) says that despite getting a R22-billion capital injection from National Treasury, it is still projected to suffer a loss of about R26 billion in the 2021/22 financial year.The insurer warned Parliament&#039;s Select Committee on Finance on Tuesday that its current balance sheet was inadequate for another R37 billion claims event like the July unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and parts of Gauteng. Early warning signals indicated that Sasria could suffer another loss if interventions were not urgently implemented.Sasria&#039;s written submission to the committee also indicated that it projected a loss of R26 billion after tax for 2021-22, compared to a profit of R1.5 billion in 2020-21 after tax.The submission said Sasria&#039;s insurance contract liabilities were projected to rise from R1.3 billion in 2020-21 to R15.8 billion for 2021-22.Newly appointed CEO Mpumelelo Tyikwe said the solvency ratio of Sasria went down significantly due to the riots in July and the continuing backlog in claims from businesses affected by the violence.-Fin24

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