COMPANY NEWS IN BRIEF

Shoprite sees a decline in armed robberiesShoprite, South Africa’s largest retailer, says it has dealt a major blow against crime over the past three years, securing over 1 700 years of prison time – including 24 life sentences – for criminals.The company, which has a range of brands in its portfolio including Shoprite, Checkers and Usave, said in a statement on Tuesday it had also seen a year-on-year decline in armed robberies and burglaries, while successfully prosecuting a host of criminals who had committed crimes against it. It did not specify what these crimes were, but said the criminals concerned had received a total 1 384 years and three months – including 24 life sentences - in the past three years.This number swelled to more than 1 700 if the number of suspects still awaiting trial, but were behind bars due to Shoprite successfully opposing bail, was taken into account. As far as awaiting trial suspects were concerned, they had been in custody for 395 years and eight months.The retailer did not specify exactly how many criminals were affected by its efforts."Our top priority remains creating a safer environment for our customers and our employees," said Oswald Meiring, head of group security and loss prevention at Shoprite in the statement. Securing arrests and sentences was also critical to deter and reduce crime, he added.-Fin24ArcelorMittal closes Newcastle plantArcelorMittal South Africa is putting its major Newcastle and Vereeniging long steel operations in care and maintenance due to a lack of demand. Long steel products include wire, rods, railway rails and bars.The steelmaker cited high logistical and transportation costs, energy prices and load shedding as the reason for giving up the operations. This comes after years of aggressive cost cuts to save the business, which ultimately proved fruitless as SA's steel consumption has declined 20% over the past seven years.More than 3 500 employees will be affected by the decision. ArcelorMittal said it tried to save the operations by aggressive cost-cutting, increased raw material cost savings and productivity initiatives over recent years."Despite these best efforts, the initiatives were unable to counteract the cumulative effect of a slowing economy and a difficult trading environment," said chief executive officer Kobus Verster in a statement. SA now consumes only 4 million tonnes of steel as infrastructure expenditure dwindled.High transport and logistics costs, as well as escalating energy prices and load shedding have added further pressure.-Fin24Oceana expects higher demandAs a devastating bird flu outbreak and load shedding costs fuel higher chicken and egg prices, more South Africans are expected to switch to canned pilchards, says Lucky Star producer Oceana.The company saw strong volume growth in the past year to end September as it kept price increases at 10% - even as input costs more than doubled, says CEO Neville Brink.This put pressure on its margins: Lucky Star's margin decreased to 8.9% from 10.3% in the previous year. But the group delivered strong sales growth of 9% for the year across both local and export markets, totalling 9.6 million cartons. In the previous year, it sold 8.8 million cartons.Brink says the affordable protein market in SA is worth around R100 billion, and is dominated by frozen chicken pieces, eggs and polony. Lucky Star's turnover of about R5.5 billion meant it was still a relatively small player in the segment, and illustrated how much opportunity there was to extend this footprint, says Brink.Eggs, which represent about 11% of the affordable protein market, have been in short supply, which has pushed prices higher. Brink expects chicken prices to start to increase too, which he expects to drive more consumers to switch to the popular canned pilchards brand.Brink told News24 he had great sympathy for chicken producers such as Astral Foods, which recently reported its first loss in 23 years. -Fin24Zeda expects good DecemberAvis and Budget rental car operator Zeda reported strong full-year topline and earnings growth as its car rental and leasing businesses benefitted from a surge in corporate demand and an influx of inbound tourists.At the same time, Transnet rail woes provided a fillip for the heavy commercial vehicle leasing segment as more freight was transported on roads to ports due to rail woes.Reporting its first set of full-year results since listing on the JSE in December 2022, Zeda said the growth – revenue rose some 12% to R9.145 billion for the year to end September 2023 – was achieved even as it negotiated a "challenging operating environment, with rising interest rates and a softening used car market".Earnings before interest, taxes, deprecation and amortisation (ebitda) rose 18% to R3.321 billion, while headline earnings per share rose 17% to 381c.The results were well received by the market with shares rising about 3.5% to R12.90 in afternoon trading.-Fin24Top PetroSA CEO candidate liedThe leading candidate to become the CEO of state-owned oil company PetroSA, Nkululeko Poya, has accumulated a string of misconduct findings and charges during his public service career from spying on staff, bullying and victimisation of whistleblowers, abuse of power, manipulation of tenders and fabricating a fake court order in an attempt to clear his name. Poya is the interim chairperson of PetroSA and a non-executive director of the Central Energy Fund (CEF). He has never worked in the petrochemicals industry but beat eminently more qualified candidates for the job, which comes with an R5 million-a-year salary and a five-year contract. His name was number one on a list of three put forward for confirmation to Cabinet two weeks ago by Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Gwede Mantashe. However, due to concerns over his security clearance raised by some Cabinet ministers, the decision on his appointment was deferred to a later meeting, according to two individuals with knowledge of the discussion. Mantashe said in an interview on Monday that the Cabinet had requested that Poya be vetted and he was waiting for that process to unfold before bringing the matter back to Cabinet.-Fin24Cell C hopes to win market shareHaving received a boost from debt investors who accepted an 80% haircut, Cell C is on a drive to increase its share of the market with a low-cost cellphone package. South Africa's smallest mobile phone operator is wooing users with a R9-all-day unlimited phone call promotion to calls within its own network. Cell C will also give prepaid users a bonus equivalent to three times the expenditure when they recharge.The company hopes to use these promotions to win market share away from its major competitors who have been making increasing investments in data technology infrastructure."Users can make as many calls, of any duration, and the cost will not exceed R9 per day," said Jorge Mendes, the company's chief executive officer, in an interview. "We want people to test our network and see what value we offer. Our aim is to make sure we have a significant number of primary SIM cards in the market and be the primary phone people use for phone calls." The group is hoping to use this flat charge to add to the more than 8.2 million customers it already has. Last year it had about 10 million customers. The current customers spent an average R80 per month in the nine months ended September 2023. This compares favourably to the average monthly revenue of R74 per month in the year ended December 2022.-Fin24

COMPANY NEWS IN BRIEF

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