South Africa
The genesis of junk
Two South African firms have launched successful high-yield debt issues. Edward Russell-Walling reports.When South African corporates want to raise capital, the international bond market is not the first place they go looking. For most of them, it would quite literally be the last. But two groundbreaking South African high-yield issues may herald a change in attitude.
£3bn ABSA deal to boost Barclays’ African profile
The UK’s Barclays is investing close to £3bn in South Africa to get control of that country’s biggest retail bank, Absa – the biggest foreign purchase ever by the British group. The deal has been approved by regulators and has the support of sufficient shareholders to be successful, after almost a year of behind-the-scenes talks.
A picture of health
South African banking is on the right path for achieving its economic efficiency and consumer protection targets. South Africa’s banking sector is in good health, with banks well-capitalised and the total balance sheet growing markedly during 2003, according to a report released in July by the bank supervision department of the South African Reserve Bank.
Smart moves in the developing world
South African company Aplitec saw a gap in the payments market and devised a cheaper alternative to the EMV standard. Stuart Theobald explains how this upstart company has stolen a march on the global card giants.Smart cards have heralded a technical revolution in payments systems across the globe. But the industry smart card standard Europay Mastercard Visa (EMV) is not without its challengers. One that has caught the attention of Visa particularly is a small South African IT company called Aplitec.
RSA gets balance right for empowerment charter
News that South Africa’s financial sector has agreed to an ambitious black empowerment charter has pushed financial stocks upwards. The government-endorsed charter sets down detailed empowerment targets for companies, paving the way for as much as 25% of the sector’s value to be in black ownership by 2010.