Company News in Brief

Dark days at MultiChoiceMultiChoice Group warned on Friday that shareholders in its Phuthuma Nathi black economic empowerment scheme should expect a big cut to their dividend as the broadcaster struggles to retain customers in a difficult economy.In a voluntary operational update published on Friday, MultiChoice – which is the subject of a takeover bid from France’s Groupe Canal – warned shareholders that market conditions have not improved since it reported disappointing interim results last November.It said its financial results for the year ended 31 March 2025, which it will publish in the coming months, will show a group under severe pressure as “household spending remains constrained by the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, compounded by elevated inflation and interest rates” in many of the markets in which it operates.“This is likely to impact negatively on performance in the 2025 financial year,” it said in a statement to investors. “The group has returned to a positive equity position, but capital preservation remains a key consideration in the current environment.” -TECHCENTRAL New Capitec CEO announcedLong-serving Capitec CEO Gerrie Fourie is retiring. He will step down at its AGM in July after 25 years in leadership positions at the bank.Fourie, who is a founding member of Capitec, will be replaced by another Capitec veteran, Graham Lee.“Under his stewardship as CEO, Capitec transformed from a challenger bank serving five million clients to South Africa’s leading digital bank and a diversified financial services provider serving over 24 million clients,” Capitec said in a statement to investors on Friday. “Gerrie’s leadership has been instrumental in fostering a culture of innovation and growth at Capitec.”Lee, 50, will succeed Fourie after Capitec’s AGM on 19 July. He has been a member of the group executive team since 2022. He originally joined the bank in 2003 and has held leadership positions in credit, technology and data, and retail operations. Most recently, he has served as group executive do the retail bank division.“Gerrie and Graham will continue to work closely together over the next four months to ensure a smooth transition,” Capitec said. “Graham will join the Capitec and Capitec Bank Boards effective 19 July.” Lee has BBusSci (honours) and MBA degrees and is a chartered management accountant. He started his career in investment banking in Zimbabwe in 1997 before continuing in London with Morgan Stanley International. -TECHCENTRALChina floods the world with AI models after DeepSeek successDeepSeek did more than just show the AI industry you don’t have to spend billions to build artificial intelligence. It fired up a long-dormant Chinese tech industry — and now Western names from OpenAI Inc. to Nvidia Corp. may pay the price.Since DeepSeek upstaged OpenAI in January with a powerful model that purportedly cost just several million dollars to build, China’s tech leaders have flooded the market with a rapid succession of low-cost AI services, undercutting premium offerings from the likes of OpenAI and Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Chinese companies have in the past two weeks rolled out no fewer than 10 major product updates or releases — and that’s just the big names.Baidu Inc. unfurled the Ernie X1 in direct competition with DeepSeek’s R1. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd followed suit with its own AI agents and reasoning model upgrade. Just in the past week, Tencent Holdings trotted out its AI blueprint and answer to the R1; Ant Group Co shared findings on how Chinese chips can slash costs by a fifth; DeepSeek itself upgraded the V3 model. Even Meituan — best known as the world’s biggest meal-delivery service — announced it was splashing out billions of yuan on AI.The rapidly accelerating array of enhancements and tune-ups is more than Chinese companies jumping on the DeepSeek bandwagon. Collectively, the AI models — nearly all of them open-sourced — represent the developers’ effort to set world standards and benchmarks, and grab a bigger slice of the global market. While the jury is out on whether these AI releases match or surpass the most cutting-edge systems from Western AI developers, these newer options are putting more pressure on the business models of leading US companies.-BLOOMBERG NEWS Elon Musk consolidates power as xAI swallows XElon Musk’s xAI has acquired X in a deal that values the social media platform at US$33-billion and allows the value of his artificial intelligence firm to be shared with his co-investors in the company formerly known as Twitter.The deal could also help xAI’s ability to train its chatbot known as Grok.“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined,” Musk, who also heads car maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, wrote in a post on X. “Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent.”He said the combination values xAI at $80-billion and X at $33-billion, or $45-billion less $12-billion in debt.Representatives for X and xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Much of the deal’s specifics remain unclear, such as how X’s leaders would be integrated in the new firm or whether there would be regulatory scrutiny. Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, is also a close ally of US President Donald Trump and heads the department of government efficiency.Saudi Arabian investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who owns the investment company Kingdom Holding, said he had requested the development. He noted his companies are the second largest investors in X and xAI. “After this deal, the value of our investments is expected to reach between $4-billion and $5-billion ... and the meter is running,” he said in a post on X. -REUTERS

Company News in Brief

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