Company News in Brief

Old Mutual's Iain Williamson to take early retirement Financial services giant Old Mutual announced that its CEO, Iain Williamson, will take early retirement and step down as at the end of August. Williamson, who turns 55 this year, was appointed to the position in July 2020, after serving as the interim CEO from May 2019, having joined the group in 1993. "The board has accepted Mr Williamson's request to take early retirement after 32 years with the Old Mutual Group, the last five as CEO, and extends its heartfelt thanks for his remarkable commitment and service to the company, its clients and the industry," the group said. "He will leave Old Mutual a stronger, more resilient and more innovative company that is ideally positioned to grow and thrive into the future."-FIN24 R16.5bn payout to Anglo American Platinum shareholders Anglo American Platinum has returned a whopping R16.5 billion to shareholders, largely through a special cash dividend, as it restructures its balance sheet ahead of unbundling from the Anglo American group in June. The world's largest platinum miner reported a 40% fall in headline earnings to R8.4 billion to end December, largely because of softer metal prices and a stronger rand. But alongside the release of its annual results on Monday, Amplats declared a base dividend of R800 million, or R3 per share, for the year, as well as an additional cash dividend of R15.7 billion, or R59 per share. Speaking to media, Amplats CEO Craig Miller said emptying the company vaults is normal procedure ahead of a demerger, as it looks to set its independent capital structure in the most efficient manner before going it alone.-FIN24 Baidu loses $2.4bn in market value The Hong Kong shares of Baidu plunged on Monday, wiping $2.4 billion (R44 billion) off its market value, after the founder of the Chinese search engine giant was not spotted at a rare meeting between President Xi Jinping and corporate leaders. Xi hosted a symposium in Beijing with the country's top tycoons, including Alibaba founder Jack Ma and Huawei's Ren Zhengfei, although two sources told Reuters there was no sign of Baidu's founder, Robin Li, attending. Baidu did not respond to a request for comment. - ReutersTencent trialing own AI toolChinese technology giant Tencent on Monday said it had started trialing its own artificial intelligence reasoning model after integrating DeepSeek into some of its products, saying the move would make responses "more 'human'". Insurgent Chinese AI startup DeepSeek made global headlines last month when it unveiled its R1 chatbot that can seemingly match American competitors at a fraction of the cost. Since then, a series of major Chinese companies have said they will integrate DeepSeek's technology into their products. On Monday, Tencent said in a post on WeChat - the social media platform it owns - that selected users of its Yuanbao chatbot may address queries to either DeepSeek or its homegrown AI reasoning model "Hunyuan Thinker". - AFPDOGE seeks access to US tax office Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has sparked alarm by seeking access to a system with the US tax office that has detailed financial data about millions of Americans, US media reported. Spearheaded by Musk, the world's richest man, US President Donald Trump has embarked on a campaign to slash public spending deemed wasteful or contrary to his policies. The Washington Post and others reported that the latest request is for DOGE officials to have broad access to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) systems, property and datasets. This includes the Integrated Data Retrieval System (IDRS), access to which is usually extremely limited and which offers "instantaneous visual access to certain taxpayer accounts", according to the IRS. As of Sunday evening, the request had not been granted, the reports said. - AFP

Company News in Brief

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