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Cape Town - A roundup of Wednesday's top economic and finance reads on Fin24.
Rand skids on Donald Trump's 'get ready Russia' tweet
The rand lost 8 cents within minutes after a tweet by US President Donald Trump warning Russia against countering missiles the US intends to fire at targets in Syria.
The local unit weakened abruptly from R12.04/$ to R12.12/$ in early afternoon trade, after Trump's tweet hit emerging market currencies. By 14:40 it had strengthened to R12.056.
"President Donald Trump has sent a stern warning to Russia in a tweet, this has sent emerging market currencies into a spin. [The] Russian ruble lost around 3% so far today, dragging the ZAR with it," said TreasuryONE in a snap note.
World Bank says SA could halve poverty by 2030
The World Bank says South Africa could more than halve its number of poor people to 4 million by 2030 if it addresses corruption, gets free higher education right and reduces policy uncertainty in its mining industry.
"Solutions are needed to foster inclusive growth, which in practice means improving the poor’s access to good jobs so they can fully participate in the economy," the World Bank said in an economic update on South Africa released on Tuesday.
South Africa has been using fiscal redistribution through social assistance with about 17 million South Africans receiving various forms of social grants, which cost the government more than R150bn annually.
VBS Mutual Bank 'severely mismanaged' - SARB affidavit
VBS Mutual Bank was “severely mismanaged” and there is reason to believe there has been fraudulent reporting and manipulation of financial information, according to the initial findings of an assessment presented to the South African Reserve Bank by its curator auditing firm SizweNtsalubaGobodo.
This is according to an affidavit filed by the central bank on March 29, relating to a court application initially launched by Vele Investments, the majority shareholder of VBS. The affidavit was lodged by deputy Reserve Bank governor Kuben Naidoo.
The Reserve Bank placed VBS under curatorship in early March because of the bank’s severe liquidity crisis. Vele Investments wanted to challenge the placing of the bank under curatorship in court as "unconstitutional", but dropped the case in mid-March on the advice of its board.
Thieves get away with 12 kilograms of gold from North West mine
Thieves broke into Harmony Gold Mining Company's Kalgold mine and stole 12 kilograms of the precious metal, according to spokesperson Lauren Fourie.
The robbers accessed “heavily guarded” gold storage facilities in a significant security breach at the mine, situated in the North West province, she said. The incident is being investigated.
“The gold was stored at the mine under heavy security,” Fourie said by phone. “It was a brazen attack, luckily nobody was hurt.”
At current prices the stolen gold is worth about about R6.2m.
Steinhoff's Christo Wiese defends company payments as legitimate
Steinhoff International Holdings [JSE:SNH] ex-chairperson Christo Wiese said he received €325m from the retailer last year as up-front payments related to a planned merger between supermarket chain Shoprite Holdings and Steinhoff’s Africa operations.
In a phone interview, Wiese said he received two payments of €200m and €125m for shares in Steinhoff Africa Retail, known as STAR, a step in the process of combining the unit with Cape Town-based Shoprite, in which Wiese is the biggest shareholder.
That deal collapsed shortly after Steinhoff reported accounting irregularities, so he agreed to return the cash, he said.
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