Company news in brief

Load shedding shocks Mr PriceMr Price's somewhat slower approach in insulating itself from the threat of load shedding came back to haunt it in 2023, with the value retailer saying having just over a third of its store base covered by backup power helped shave off more than R1 billion in revenue.A massive increase in its store base, including through the acquisition of Studio 88, helped lift group revenue 17% to R32.9 billion in the year to 1 April, but core profit only grew 5.4% to R7.2 billion.The retailer, valued at about R35 billion on the JSE, said it was hit by a "significant increase" in load shedding in its second half which "heavily impacted the most important festive trading months". At the end of September, back-up power was only available in 37% of its core business, with Mr Price saying the group had been "conservative in its back-up power investment" because the "historical implementation of load shedding was manageable until September 2022". If acquisitions were included, a total of 58% of the store footprint had back up power.Mr Price said that between September and March this year, the "cumulative quantum of load shedding" had been more than the previous 15 years combined, resulting in an estimated annual loss of 318 000 trading hours or R1 billion in revenue. – Fin24Aramco, TotalEnergies in US$11bn dealSaudi Aramco and France's TotalEnergies on Saturday signed contracts to start building a US$11 billion petrochemicals facility in the Gulf kingdom.The project, first announced in 2018, represents an investment of around US$11 billion, of which US$4 billion will be funded through equity by Aramco and TotalEnergies.The complex will enable Saudi Arabia's SATORP refinery to convert internally produced off-gases and naphtha, as well as ethane and natural gasoline supplied by Aramco, into higher value chemicals.It will have the capacity to produce 1.65 million tonnes per annum of ethylene and other industrial gases, Aramco said."As part of Aramco's growth strategy, the project is anticipated to contribute to value-addition opportunities in the kingdom's downstream ecosystem," Aramco president Amin Nasser said at the signing ceremony. – Fin24/AFP

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