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Cape Town - A roundup of Monday's top economic and finance reads on Fin24.
Eskom slaps whistle-blower Suzanne Daniels with fresh charges
Eskom blocked whistle-blower Suzanne Daniels’s return to work on Monday, and slapped her with fresh charges of “serious misconduct”.
The decision came after the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) declared her previous suspension as “unfair”.
The power utility said the new charges stem from a 2017 matter which was not covered in the recent CCMA ruling.
Daniels is accused of “distributing confidential information, settlement of the McKinsey-Trillian matter and payments made to McKinsey and Trillian, as well as her involvement in the Optimum and Tegeta prepayments and guarantee issued by Eskom”, the company said in a statement.
Business, labour confident Moody’s will grant SA a ratings reprieve
Business and labour say that the mood appears to be “positive” that credit ratings agency Moody’s will give South Africa a reprieve on Friday, after a three-leg international roadshow by Treasury, business and labour last week.
“We saw all three ratings agencies (in London) and I’m happy to say that the mood seems to be positive,” Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) CEO Bonang Mohale told Fin24 by phone, from New York.
“We have been very well received… our story is much easier to sell and much more believable.”
Dennis George, General Secretary of the Federation of Trade Unions of South Africa (Fedusa), said while “it’s difficult” to see from the body language of officials, he’s positive that Moody’s will maintain South Africa’s credit rating at the end of the week.
Township favourites shunned amid listeriosis scandal
At the Good Hope restaurant in Johannesburg’s Alexandra township, Bongiwe Maseko goes out of her way to assure customers that the food is safe to eat.
For hungry patrons hunting for a meal, it’s a frighteningly real concern as South Africa races to contain the world’s worst outbreak of listeriosis. The bacterial disease, which has killed 183 people, has been traced to a processed-meat factory and linked to polony.
Manufacturer Tiger Brands has recalled at least 3 700 tons of meat and the government recommends avoiding ready-to-eat processed meat products.
That’s bad news for Good Hope, which Maseko’s mother opened in 1983 and is famous for its kotas - a street food made from a hollowed-out quarter-loaf of bread, usually stuffed with fries, cheese, sausages and polony.
Hong Kong's richest woman loses half her wealth on stock plunge
Pollyanna Chu has lost her title as Hong Kong’s richest woman after her listed company turned into Asia’s worst performer this year.
Worth almost $12bn as recently as January, she’s seen more than half of her wealth wiped out as the stock crashed.
Kingston Financial Group, which operates businesses including Macau casinos and margin lending, has tumbled 52% since Hong Kong’s securities regulator in January warned investors that the company’s shares were overly concentrated among a small number of stockholders.
The stock is the worst performer on MSCI’s Asian gauge this year, after surging 88% in the last quarter of 2017.
Tiger Brands puts costs of listeria precautions at hundreds of millions of rands
Tiger Brands has put the expected costs of recalling products by its subsidiary Enterprise Foods as a result of fears over the listeriosis outbreak at a minimum of R380m.
Earlier in the month Enterprise Foods had to close its meat processing facilities in Polokwane and have its polony and russian sausage products recalled from supermarket shelves across the country, after Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi traced the ST6 strain of Listeria to its Polokwane facility.
Tiger Brands [JSE:TBS] has, however, rejected claims that its products were directly linked to the 183 deaths and 1 000 cases of listeriosis which have occurred in the country since October 2017.
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