Company Briefs

Bad debt will weigh on WesBank

WesBank’s vehicle asset finance is expected to be weighed down by bad debt write-offs until June before the unit returns to growing its profit.

The local retail vehicle asset finance is the key part of WesBank, which forms part of the FirstRand group, when it comes to the company’s profits.

“It is possible at the end of the year – as of July 2018 – that we will have an abnormally high bad debt number. We are obviously working hard to get that number down,” WesBank group CEO Chris de Kock said in an interview this week.

A bad debt cannot be recovered and is then written off.

-Fin24

Eni sells 10% of Egypt's Shorouk concession

MILAN - Italian oil company Eni said on Sunday it would sell a 10% stake in the Shorouk concession in Egypt’s Zohr gas field to Mubadala Petroleum of the United Arab Emirates for US$934 million.

Eni currently holds through its subsidiary IEOC a 60% stake in the block, the biggest ever gas discovery in the Mediterranean, with 400 million standard cubic feet per day.

Rosneft holds a 30% share and BP 10%. The deal fits with Eni’s so-called ‘dual exploration’ strategy, under which the state-controlled group aims to sell down stakes in fields it operates in order to raise cash to fund future development and support dividends.

-Nampa/Reuters

Sinopec, Chevron’s US$900m deal approved

JOHANNESBURG - China’s Sinopec Corp got a major boost in its pursuit of Chevron’s South Africa and Botswana assets after South Africa’s Competition Tribunal approved, with conditions, the US$900 million transaction on Friday.

State-owned Sinopec was competing for the assets against commodities trader and miner Glencore, which swooped in last October with a US$973 million bid following delays to Sinopec’s original agreement.

The transaction is subject to Sinopec investing 6 billion rand (US$504 million) over five years to develop a refinery in South Africa’s Western Cape, over and above Chevron’s current investment plans, the Tribunal said in a statement.

The Tribunal also said there should be no retrenchments as a result of the proposed transaction.

-Nampa/Reuters

Anglo: Mining could be double its size

The mining industry could have been twice the size it is today if it wasn’t for the uncertainty the country had experienced over the past five years, Anglo American CEO Mark Cutifani said last week.

At a business conference organised by Bloomberg in Cape Town, he said that the sector was positive about the new government and the appointment of Gwede Mantashe as minister of mineral resources.

“We are in a new place and we’re very excited,” he said.

Cutifani said they were also optimistic that the change in leadership in the country would bring policy certainty and a clear long-term plan that was needed for the mining sector to survive.

Stephen Koseff, the CEO of Investec, said South Africa had come a long way since President Cyril Ramaphosa was elected as the leader of the ANC in December.

-Fin24

Guptas pillaged own companies- rescuers

The Gupta family “raped and pillaged” the productive companies they controlled to subsidise unprofitable ones, and to pay for everything from houses to their jet and a game farm, said business rescue practitioner Johan-Louis Klopper when he spoke to a room full of the family’s creditors this week.

He and Kurt Knoop have been appointed to run eight Gupta companies, including the Optimum and Koornfontein coal mines, Shiva Uranium and VR Laser Services, as well as the Guptas’ property investment companies Confident Concepts and Islandsite Investments 180.

Officially, it is the lack of bank accounts that forced the companies into voluntary business rescue, as reflected in sworn statements by directors submitted to the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission.

-Fin24