COMPANY NEWS IN BRIEF

Glencore's ex-head of oil appears in UK court on bribery charges

Glencore's former head of oil Alex Beard appeared in a London court on Tuesday to face bribery charges relating to the Swiss commodity trader's operations in Africa.

Beard will plead not guilty, his lawyer said at London's Westminster Magistrates' Court.

The 57-year-old is charged with two counts of conspiracy to make corrupt payments to government officials and officials of state-owned oil companies in Nigeria between 2010 and 2014, and in Cameroon between 2007 and 2014.

Beard, who is the most high-profile commodity trader to have been charged in Britain for alleged corruption, joined Glencore in 1995 from BP, the biggest trading desk at that time, and was head of oil from 2007 until 2019, when he retired.

He helped Glencore become one of the top three oil trading firms, trading as much as 7% of the world's oil in its heyday.

Four other ex-Glencore employees – Andrew Gibson, Paul Hopkirk, Ramon Labiaga and Martin Wakefield – were also charged with making corrupt payments relating to Glencore's operations in Nigeria, Cameroon and Ivory Coast.

Gibson and Hopkirk indicated not guilty pleas through their lawyers. Labiaga and Wakefield did not indicate any pleas and were not required to do so.

Gibson and Wakefield are further charged with conspiracy to falsify documents between 2007 and 2011.

Another ex-Glencore employee, David Perez, has been charged with making corrupt payments and conspiracy to falsify documents. Perez did not indicate any pleas.

Prosecutor Alexandra Healy said the alleged offences related to the West Africa desk of Glencore's London office.

All six defendants' cases were sent to Southwark Crown Court for a hearing on Oct. 8.

-REUTERS-

AngloGold Ashanti to buy Centamin in $2.5 billion deal

AngloGold Ashanti will buy Egypt-focused smaller rival Centamin in a $2.5 billion stock and cash deal, the companies said on Tuesday, as the U.S.-listed global miner expands its operations in Africa.

Shares in Centamin jumped about 24% to 148.10 pence in early trade, their highest level since October 2020. Shares in Centamin's London-listed peer Hochschild rose about 4%.

New York-listed AngloGold's shares were down 6% in premarket trading.

Under the terms of the deal, Centamin shareholders will receive 0.06983 new AngloGold shares for each Centamin share and $0.125 in cash.

The implied 163 pence ($2.14) per share offer represents a premium of 36.7% to Centamin's Monday closing price of 120 pence, the companies said in a statement.

The acquisition coincides with a flurry of deal activity in the gold mining sector over the past couple of years, with the world's top gold producer Newmont buying Australia's Newcrest Mining for $16.8 billion in late 2023.

AngloGold Ashanti said it expects the deal to be accretive to free cash flow per share in the first full year post completion of the transaction.

Describing the deal as "highly compelling", AngloGold Ashanti Chair Jochen Tilk said it offered "enormous geological potential" that the company was well-placed to develop.

Centamin's principal asset is the Sukari gold mine, which is Egypt's largest gold mine as well as one of the world's largest producing mines.

-REUTERS-

Sun City owner's profit jumps on big betting gains

Sun International reported a 9.1% rise in first-half earnings on Monday, as record growth in the South African casino and hotel group's betting business helped drive its income.

The owner of the Sun City resort and Maslow Sandton and Table Bay high-end hotels said adjusted headline earnings per share - its main profit measure - rose to 2.15 rand ($0.1201) in the six months to June 30, from 1.97 rand a year earlier.

Sunbet was the stand-out with a 71.8% rise in income to 512 million rand. Sun International, which achieved mixed results across its segments, said in a statement its urban casino income - its biggest revenue generator - was flat at 3.3 billion rand.

"The gaming industry is experiencing dynamic changes and Sun International, through Sunbet, will continue leveraging its strong brand and market presence to expand our customer base and enter new online markets across Africa," Sun International said.

The group said expected interest rate cuts would lift its business outlook and create a more favourable operating environment in the medium to long term.

It declared an interim dividend of 1.61 rand per share.

-REUTERS-

South Africa's Land Bank shrinks debt, loan book as it surfaces from default

Land Bank's debt and loan book have been cut by more than half, South African officials said on Monday, as the state-owned agricultural lender prepares to emerge from more than four years of default.

Land Bank defaulted on its debt in April 2020, becoming the first large South African state entity to do so. It had failed to agree restructuring terms with its lenders until the government said last week that a deal had been reached.

The bank's chief executive told reporters its debt had fallen from over 45 billion rand ($2.5 billion) at the time of default to 16 billion rand. Four billion rand would be repaid when the "liability solution" takes effect later this month, leaving 12 billion rand to be repaid until March 2028.

Themba Rikhotso said Land Bank will be allowed to "incur further borrowings provided this is done within set parameters to ensure that current lenders' rights are protected".

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said it was commendable that the bank had been able to repay via its own cashflow 60% of its funding liabilities since defaulting. But he said the bank's financial support to the agricultural sector had fallen from 45 billion rand at its peak to about 17 billion rand.

"We want the bank to adhere to the covenants set out in its debt restructure agreement, and to begin a process to address its funding structure so that we never find ourselves in a similar position again," Godongwana said.

He said of the 10 billion rand in state bailouts given to Land Bank around the time of its default, 3.7 billion rand had been allocated to a blended finance scheme.

"We also ensured that the bank found self-help measures while keeping fiscal support to a minimum," Godongwana said.

-REUTERS-

Nigeria's NNPC says not sole buyer of Dangote gasoline

Nigeria's state-owned oil firm NNPC Ltd said on Saturday it will not be the sole buyer of gasoline from Dangote refinery but would step in if the facility sold above pump prices.

The 650 000 barrel-per-day capacity Dangote refinery started producing gasoline earlier this week, raising expectations that this would end decades of the country relying on imports, which cost billions of dollars annually.

The refinery had said NNPC would be the sole buyer of its petrol, also known as premium motor spirit (PMS) and that the government would set prices. However, NNPC said in a statement that Dangote would determine the price of its gasoline and could sell directly to marketers, who buy in bulk and distribute to fuel stations.

Until now, NNPC was sole importer of gasoline into Nigeria. NNPC earlier this week hiked the price of petrol from an average 617 naira ($0.3905) a litre to 855 naira.

Dangote will initially supply 25 million litres of gasoline daily into the domestic market this month, increasing to 30 million litres from October. "The NNPC Ltd. will only fully offtake PMS from the DRL (Dangote Refinery Ltd) if the market prices of PMS are higher than the pump prices in Nigeria," NNPC said.

-REUTERS-