South Africa’s supermarket chain Shoprite has opened its first shopping centre in Tete Junction, Mozambique. The opening, on 3 December, marks the entrance of Africa’s largest food retailer to the Tete province. Since starting out as a small chain of only 8 supermarkets in Cape Town in 1979, Shoprite has grown to more than 450 stores […]

After having worked for years in Africa, I have come to believe it is one of the places in which the world of tomorrow is being incubated. Most of the stereotypes I had in mind 13 years ago when I began travelling across the continent proved to be wrong. What I discovered is that Africa […]

PRETORIA – During the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to South Africa for the China-Africa summit this week, the two countries signed 26 agreements worth R94 billion ($6.5 billion) on Wednesday, the South African government announced. Xi arrived in South Africa on Wednesday from Zimbabwe, ahead of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit in […]

Almost 60 percent of Africans believe that corruption in their countries has increased over the past year, although in South Africa this figure is 83 percent, according to a new survey released on Tuesday. According to Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer for 2015, done together with Afrobarometer, it spoke to 43,143 respondents across 28 countries […]

South African Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba has attempted to clarify the current situation regarding the recently announced concessions to the immigration regulations. In a nutshell, as discovered last weekend by British actor Idris Elba – foreign children are still required to comply with the visa requirements which were implemented on 1 June this year…until such […]

Move over, Starbucks, doughnut-maker Krispy Kreme and competitor Dunkin’ Donuts are also opening up in South Africa. While much attention has been given to the fact that coffee giant Starbucks will open its first branch in South Africa in 2016, it’s been less publicized that at least two other very successful US chains will be doing likewise. (Krispy Kreme’s first […]

MONTREAL (Reuters) – Ethiopian Airlines, Africa’s largest carrier, wants to buy 10 narrowbody planes and is considering Canada’s Bombardier and Brazil’s Embraer jets among others, as it plans to nearly double its fleet between now and 2025, chief executive Tewolde Gebremariam said Monday. Tewolde, speaking on the sidelines of a global aviation forum in Montreal, […]

JOHANNESBURG – The state-owned freight and logistics company Transnet has secured R12 billion ($853 million) for its locomotive programme, it announced on Monday, bringing to R48 billion the capital raised to buy the trains. Transnet said it sourced the latest money via a club loan from Absa, Nedbank, Bank of China, Futuregrowth Asset Managers and Old Mutual Specialised Finance.   “I think […]

JOHANNESBURG – The embattled South African Airways has appointed a new CEO after only four months, its seventh chief in four years, after the airline faced renewed challenges from its pilots and staff, according to news reports on Wednesday. SAA said in a statement that Thuli Mpshe will be replaced as acting chief by the head of technical […]

Talking to foreign fund managers about South Africa is sobering. I spent last week doing that in New York. Billions of dollars that were directed into our shares and bonds over the past two decades are being pulled out. The only fund managers who are smiling are those that have gone short on South African assets, […]

The name is derived from “happy prospect” in Afrikaans, and once upon a time, life and the gold haul were both good at the Blyvooruitzicht Gold Mine, 50 miles west of Johannesburg. But two years after the mine’s owners abandoned it because it was unprofitable, sewage runs in the streets of the old mining village, […]

Yes, the rand is plunging, unemployment is rocketing and the country’s debt is increasing, but South Africa remains one of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa that has been growing faster than other countries around the world, according to a new report. The report by financial news agency Bloomberg on Tuesday, compiled from various data since 2005, said that South Africa’s Gross […]

ABUJA – Shares in telecommunications giant MTN reportedly fell to a three-year low on Tuesday after the Nigerian Communications Commission on Monday fined the company $5.2 billion for failing to disconnect users with unregistered SIM cards. Nigeria is apparently MTN’s biggest market by subscribers. The penalty could wipe out more than two years of MTN’s profits, one news report said. The NCC […]

TORONTO – In two roundups of the world’s best MBA programs, the University of Cape Town came out in the Top 50 of one, and was ranked best in Africa in the other. The highly regarded Canadian magazine Corporate Knights, which is a supplement to the Washington Post and subtitles itself The Magazine for Clean Capitalism, […]

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India hosts its biggest-ever Africa summit this week as Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks to challenge China’s dominance on a continent that is blessed with vast natural resources and has the world’s fastest-growing population. New Delhi wants to project its soft power and historical ties to Africa, in contrast to China’s […]

STELLENBOSCH – The South African mobile social network Mxit, once dubbed the largest social network in Africa, has closed down commercial operations after a decade in business, according to news reports. All of Mxit’s intellectual property and technology assets will be donated to independent public benefit organisation The Reach Trust. Reports said that Mxit, which was launched in 2005, […]

Prime global residential rents are struggling to grow, but Cape Town and Zurich have substantially bucked the trend, according to the latest Knight Frank global rental index. In Cape Town prime rents – the top five percent of the market – ended the year to June 2015 10.2 percent higher, compared to the world average […]

What if we won the Rugby World Cup? I would guess that question has been asked many times in the last few decades. The interesting thing is that we have actually shown the world on a few occasions that we can be a nation of winners! Yes, we have actually won and defied many sceptics in the process. […]

LONDON – The South African brewer SABMiller has agreed to a $104-billion takeover bid by its larger rival Anheuser-Busch InBev, it was reported on Tuesday. It will apparently be the largest-ever takeover of a British-listed company. According to one news report, the takeover is also one of the top five mergers in corporate history, and will […]

JOHANNESBURG – South African companies are more likely than their counterparts abroad to stay away from potentially corrupt deals and will pull out of a deal they discover is corrupt even if they have already invested in it, but also feel strongly that not paying a bribe could hurt business, according to a new survey. The annual ‘International attitudes […]

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – SABMiller, the world’s second largest brewer, has promptly rejected an improved offer from bigger rival Anheuser-Busch InBev, saying on Wednesday that its 68 billion-pound valuation was insufficient. Earlier Belgium-based AB InBev said it was willing to pay 42.15 pounds in cash per SABMiller share, having already made two prior offers at 38 […]

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Volkswagen’s South African unit said on Monday all its vehicles in Africa’s most advanced economy are compliant with environmental laws, following the emissions testing scandal, which has rocked the global car industry. The South African business said its vehicles comply with the published CO2 values and were technically safe and roadworthy. “There […]

JOHANNESBURG – The much praised and often vilified French economist Thomas Piketty delivered the 13th Annual Nelson Mandela lecture at Johannesburg’s Soweto campus on Saturday, spending much of his well-applauded speech on inequality. Pointing out that up to 65 percent of all income earned in South Africa goes to the top 10 percent, he said the […]

When Truworths announced two weeks ago that it was in talks to take over British shoe retailer Office, the international business community was alerted once again to a brazen, if not new, player on the horizon – South Africa. Slowly but surely since sanctions ended, South African businesses have been spreading their wings (think only of the gobbling up, […]

LONDON – British Airways has announced it will cut two of its seasonal flights to Cape Town in 2016, which some have ascribed to the new visa restrictions for South Africa. BA said the flight to Cape Town on Thursdays and Saturdays, and the return flight on Fridays and Saturdays would end on March 27, 2016, […]