Company news in brief

Goldman says market activity ebbs in second quarter

Goldman Sachs Group Inc President David Solomon said on Thursday that second-quarter market activity had decreased from the first quarter, when heightened volatility helped Wall Street banks record huge profits.

Activity across investment banking is robust, Solomon said at a Bernstein conference in New York, adding that the investment banking backlog was close to an all-time high.

IPO activity, particularly in the United States and China's tech sector, was starting to pick up, Solomon said. Investment banks make big bucks on underwriting initial public offerings and providing financial counsel.

Solomon also emphasised on growth in its consumer banking business, and said the bank was building a digital finance platform to meet consumer demand and connect customers to other parts of its businesses. However, he added that Goldman did not have to be one of the "big leading consumer banks". – Nampa/Reuters

SA’s Metair bids for Slovenian car battery maker

Metair has offered to buy Slovenian car battery maker Tovarna Akumulatorskih Baterij (TAB) in a US$350 million deal that would expand the South African auto parts maker's energy storage business.

The deal, announced on Friday, it would be the latest deal by the Johannesburg-based company aimed at positioning itself as sizeable global player in the energy industry as more and more customers across the world take up battery-electric vehicles.

Buying TAB would hand it a company with factories in Slovenia and Macedonia, along with a distribution network throughout Europe, with an annual battery output of 15 million units and industrial cell manufacturing of 2 million units.

Shares in Metair rose 2.6% to R20.54, valuing it at roughly R4 billion. – Nampa/Reuters

Greenpeace activists gatecrash oil major Total's AGM

Greenpeace activists disrupted Total's annual shareholders meeting in Paris on Friday in protest against the French oil major's quest to drill in the ecologically sensitive Amazon basin and French Guyana.

Total wants to explore Brazil's Foz do Amazonas basin, which geologists estimate could contain up to 14 billion barrels of oil, or more than the entire proven reserves in the Gulf of Mexico.

Brazil's environmental agency rejected the company's bid for an environmental license for the fourth time on Tuesday, requesting more information.

A Greenpeace expedition in April documented coral in the area where Total plans to drill, after an earlier discovery of a massive coral reef nearby.

Greenpeace also opposes Total's investment in offshore oil production blocks in French Guyana, which will boost its presence in the potentially lucrative Guyana basin.

Deutsche Bank says financial strength ‘beyond doubt’

Deutsche Bank's chief executive sought to reassure staff on Friday that the lender was financially sound, after a ratings downgrade and a share price slide in the wake of a report saying the US regulator viewed the lender as "troubled" last year.

The report in Thursday's Wall Street Journal was followed on Friday by a Standard & Poor's downgrade of Deutsche's credit rating to BBB+ from A-. The ratings agency questioned whether the CEO could deliver a strategy to return the bank to profit.

S&P questioned Sewing's ability to deliver on a plan to scale back Deutsche's global investment bank and refocus on Europe and its home market to chart a return to profitability after three years of losses.

Credit ratings are critical for any company but especially crucial for a bank such as Deutsche, whose perceived health is important in winning business. Deutsche is a big issuer of debt securities whose cost is highly reliant on credit ratings.

The report sent Deutsche's shares down by 7% on Thursday to their lowest-ever closing level. – Nampa/Reuters

Airbus ‘not paralysed’ by wait for new CEO

Airbus is not hampered by uncertainty over who will lead the company in the future, its planemaking boss Guillaume Faury told a German newspaper after the European aerospace company said it would nominate a new CEO at the end of the year.

"Airbus is not paralysed," Die Welt quoted Faury as saying in an interview published on Friday. He said he himself was "available to the group", without elaborating.

Faury, the former head of the group's helicopter unit, who took over leadership of the civil planemaking business three months ago, is seen as the main internal candidate to succeed Tom Enders when he leaves next year.

Faury also said Airbus was in talks with its suppliers to manage an increase in the A320 production rate to 70 a month early in the next decade, compared with around 55 now.

He said the group did not plan to add further assembly plants to achieve production increases. It currently has plants in Hamburg, Toulouse, Tianjin in China and Mobile, Alabama in the United States. – Nampa/Reuters