Company news in brief

Bain banned from contracts over SARS

Global consultancy Bain & Company has been banned from UK government contracts for three years over the role it played in facilitating the capture of the South African Revenue Service (SARS).

Lord Peter Hain, a former UK cabinet minister with links to South Africa, recently claimed Bain was employing staff in its London office who "colluded" with former president Jacob Zuma, and asked that the government to ban it.

The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that UK Cabinet Office minister Jacob Rees-Mogg told Bain in a letter that the company’s integrity was now "questionable" and that he was not convinced that it had taken its role in the scandal "sufficiently seriously".

The three-year ban will be applied retrospectively from 4 January.

According to the Financial Times Bain was awarded UK public sector contracts worth up to £63 million (around R1.2 billion) since 2018, including £40 million (around R814 million) worth of Brexit consulting work for the Cabinet Office.

Bain told the Financial Times that it was disappointed and surprised by the decision. – Fin24

PIC invests in infrastructure in Africa

The Public Investment Corporation (PIC) has ploughed R1.6 billion into the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), which funds infrastructure development projects on the continent.

The PIC has over R2.5 trillion in assets under management – investing the pensions of civil servants – and is the largest fund manager in Africa.

The investment follows those from the Seychelles Pension Fund, the government of Sierra Leone, the Republic of Togo, the Central Bank of Guinea and the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund, the AFC said. There are 32 equity investors in the AFC.

It recently acquired Africa's biggest renewable energy independent power producer, Lekela Power. It is the joint owner with Infinity Group. Lekela Power has 1GW of wind farms - located in South Africa, Egypt and Senegal.

The AFC was established in 2007 and has delivered infrastructure projects in power, heavy industry, transport, natural resources and telecommunications. It has invested over US$10 billion across 35 countries in Africa. – Fin24

JSE posts strong profit

Despite competition from new entrants like A2X, the JSE has maintained its market share, the company said in its half-year results.

The JSE still represents 99.7% of equity market value traded in South Africa.

In the six months to end-June, its revenue from equity trading increased by 9% to R260 million, with even stronger growth in revenue from equity derivatives trading ( 13% to R83 million). The impact of market volatility "driven by global macro-economic events" bolstered its trading income.

The JSE’s total revenue grew by 11% to almost R1.4 billion, which helped to achieve 29% growth in its headline earnings per share.

Rising interest rates and growth in margin deposits say its finance income increased by 30% to R89 million.

Its general expenses increased by 11% to R282 million, and personnel costs increased by 3% to R302 million. But technology costs fell by 3% to R171 million after non-recurring costs for its mainframe migration in the previous year. – Fin24

Maersk sees weaker demand

Shipping group Maersk said it expects weaker 2022 global container demand growth, after moving fewer containers by sea in the second quarter due to worsening consumer confidence and bottlenecks at ports.

"Volumes in ocean [shipping] were softer as congestion continued and the war in Ukraine weighed on consumer confidence, particularly in Europe," CEO Soren Skou said in a statement.

Maersk, seen as a barometer for global trade, said the number of containers it loaded onto ships fell by 7.4% in the second quarter compared with a year earlier.

The company, one of the world's biggest container shippers with a market share of around 17%, revised its outlook for global container demand to the lower end of its range between minus 1% and plus 1%.

The Copenhagen-based company confirmed forecast-beating second-quarter numbers announced on Tuesday, when it also raised 2022 profit guidance as congested global supply chains that have boosted freight rates persist longer than expected. – Reuters

Airbus cuts delivery forecast

Europe's Airbus provisionally delivered just over 45 jetliners in July, two industry sources said.

The planemaker declined to comment on the unaudited figure ahead of publication of a monthly status report next Monday.

If confirmed after a regular internal audit, the figure would bring deliveries so far this year to just over 342 aircraft, or just over 340 after adjusting for two A350s that could not be delivered to Russia due to sanctions.

The pace of handovers remains roughly par with last year's equivalent total of 344 jets between January and July.

For the year as a whole, Airbus is looking to speed up deliveries. Even so, last week it cut its forecast to 700 planes from 720, compared with 611 delivered in 2021, amid shortages of labour and parts in aerospace supply chains. - Reuters