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Tuesday 18th of September 2018 |
Morning, Africa |
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The Latest Daily PodCast can be found here on the Front Page of the site http://www.rich.co.ke
Macro Thoughts |
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Bubbles are bursting just about everywhere. 17-SEP-2018 :: A decade after Lehman Africa |
Now let me return to the Eurobond Markets where Africa issued $81b worth of bonds over the last six years. These markets trade continuously. Essentially these markets are a continuous score-card on the creditworthiness of the Issuer. its a relatively recent phenomenon and something many Policy-Makers will not have considered adequately. Balance sheets are maxed out.
There are no more ‘’Quaaludes’’ and policy makers will no longer be able to pop them. ‘’In prescribed doses, Quaaludes promotes relaxation, sleepiness and sometimes a feeling of euphoria. It causes a drop in blood pressure and slows the pulse rate. These properties are the reason why it was initially thought to be a useful sedative and anxiolytic It became a recreational drug due to its euphoric effect’’.
Bubbles are bursting just about everywhere.
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Deal or no deal? Theresa May's moment of truth on Brexit Africa |
The British have long proved past masters at misreading Angela Merkel. But this time, as reports of the German chancellor’s comments filtered through, even in London there was stunned disbelief. Did Ms Merkel really want to celebrate Brexit? The exchange had come on a balmy July day in Berlin, with Theresa May sat in the chancellor’s airy, whitewashed office. Brexit talks were stuck. Britain’s cabinet was close to self-combustion. But Ms Merkel wanted to raise something else: it was time, she said, to start thinking of a “celebratory” moment that would mark the Brexit deal. Soon enough it became clear that Ms Merkel’s intentions had been lost in translation: the zelebrieren she had in mind was a solemn commemoration, more akin to a Lutheran church service than independence jamboree. Yet her remarks were telling. Britain’s exit talks, two years on from the referendum, are entering a new, decisive phase. Leaders are lifting their sights to the finish line. The Brussels compromise machine is primed. All sides see a deal within reach, possibly just eight weeks away. “It’s clear,” says one EU diplomat, “we’re in the endspiel [endgame]”. A gathering of EU leaders in Salzburg this week will be the first step of what is envisaged as a three-summit jig to a historic UK-EU agreement. Negotiators have even begun considering the choreography of the final act, a denouement expected to be a special summit in mid-November. This is not a negotiation between EU and UK. This is a negotiation within London between Remainers and Brexiters’ Pascal Lamy
Home Thoughts
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William Butler Yeats, The Wind Among the Reeds Africa |
“Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
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Russia says a military aircraft vanishes near Syria during Israeli, French strikes Reuters Law & Politics |
A U.S. official said Washington believed the aircraft, which is an Il-20 turbo-prop plane used for electronic reconnaissance, was inadvertently shot down by anti-aircraft artillery operated by Moscow’s ally, the Syrian government. Around the time the plane disappeared, the Syrian coastal city of Latakia — near a Russian airbase to which the Il-20 was returning — came under attack from “enemy missiles”, and missile defence batteries responded, Syrian state media reported. The defence ministry in Moscow said the aircraft was returning to the Russian-run Hmeymim airbase in Latakia province when, at about 11:00 p.m. Moscow time (20:00 GMT) on Monday, it disappeared from radar screens. The plane was over the Mediterranean Sea about 35 km (20 miles) from the Syrian coastline, Russia’s TASS news agency quoted the ministry as saying in a statement. “The trace of the Il-20 on flight control radars disappeared during an attack by four Israeli F-16 jets on Syrian facilities in Latakia province,” the statement was quoted as saying. “At the same time Russian air control radar systems detected rocket launches from the French frigate Auvergne which was located in that region.” The fate of the 14 people on board the missing plane is unknown, and a rescue operation has been organised out of the Hmeymim base, the ministry said. Russia’s military operation in Syria, which began in late 2015, has turned the tide of the conflict in favour of Moscow’s ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in his fight against rebels.
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@AP Exclusive: Leaked docs show @JulianAssange bid for Russian visa Law & Politics |
LONDON (AP) — Julian Assange had just pulled off one of the biggest scoops in journalistic history, splaying the innards of American diplomacy across the web. But technology firms were cutting ties to his website, WikiLeaks, cable news pundits were calling for his head and a Swedish sex crime case was threatening to put him behind bars.
Caught in a vise, the silver-haired Australian wrote to the Russian Consulate in London.
“I, Julian Assange, hereby grant full authority to my friend, Israel Shamir, to both drop off and collect my passport, in order to get a visa,” said the letter , which was obtained exclusively by The Associated Press.
Metadata suggests that it was on Nov. 29, the day after the release of the first batch of U.S. State Department files, that the letter to the Russian Consulate was drafted on the Jessica Longley computer.
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Japan challenges China with submarine military exercise in South China Sea @SCMPNews Law & Politics |
A Japanese submarine joined a military exercise in the contested area of the South China Sea, in a move that could infuriate Beijing, which claims most of the disputed waters. Japan’s participation is the latest challenge to China’s military build-up in Asia’s most strategic waterway. In a rare announcement on Monday, the Japanese ministry of defence confirmed the submarine Kuroshio, as well as the helicopter carrier Kaga and two other destroyers, the Inazuma and Suzutsuki, took part in an anti-submarine warfare exercise in the South China Sea on Thursday. This was the first time Japan’s maritime self defence force has confirmed a military drill by a Japanese submarine in the waters. Kuroshio, which left Japan on August 26, visited Cam Ranh in central Vietnam on Monday afternoon in the first port call by a Japanese submarine to a strategically important military base in Vietnam, the most provocative claimant against China’s military build-up in the South China Sea. Japan’s defence ministry did not give much detail of where exactly the exercise was held, but Japan’s Asahi newspaper cited sources as saying the Kuroshio joined the other three Japanese warships just southwest of the Beijing-controlled Scarborough Shoal, a territory also claimed by the Philippines. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang called on Tokyo to “respect the efforts made by regional countries to resolve the South China Sea issue through talks”. “Act with caution and don’t take any acts that could damage peace and stability in the region,” he said. “Japan wants to contain China in the South China Sea, and this exercise would be a negative influence on the atmosphere, but the general trend of improving bilateral ties is based on mutual interests of the two countries,” Zhou said. “China is looking for increased cooperation and even to gain support from Japan in the face of the trade tensions from the US, while Japan also sees China as a stable market which could also become a leverage in its foreign policy.”
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UAE offers a curious case study for scholars of international relations: a small state with a tiny population and historically little presence on the world stage, but with outsized - and seemingly ever-expanding - ambitions @Reuters Law & Politics |
The foreign policy of the United Arab Emirates offers a curious case study for scholars of international relations: a small state with a tiny population and historically little presence on the world stage, but with outsized – and seemingly ever-expanding – ambitions. Over the past decade, while consolidating its status as a regional financial center and international business hub, the UAE has quietly become a rising military power in the Middle East.
Since the watershed of the Arab Spring, the UAE has pursued an increasingly assertive and interventionist foreign policy, the effects of which are most evident in the Red Sea basin and Horn of Africa. Here, the UAE has sought to become a major political actor, maintaining a formidable military presence, handing out lavish economic aid and taking on the role of kingmaker and peace broker. Today, the UAE operates ports in four of the seven countries bordering the Red Sea (Egypt, Somalia, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia), and military bases in Yemen, Eritrea and Somaliland.
The UAE has been ratcheting up its economic activities in the Red Sea basin as well. In 2000, Dubai government-owned, Dubai-based port operator DP World won a 20-year concession to operate the Port of Djibouti. Its efforts in Egypt began around a decade ago when it took over the operation, development and management of Ain Sokhna Port, crucial for being the closest port to the Egyptian capital, Cairo. Last year, it signed an agreement with the Suez Canal Authority to establish a company that would develop an area of 95 kilometers in the Ain Sokhna area. In Saudi Arabia, DP World operates the South Container Terminal at the Jeddah Islamic Port, and in 2017 it won a contract to develop the entire port, in support of Saudi Vision 2030 and the $500 billion NEOM mega project.
These port deals were won through negotiation, but elsewhere the UAE has employed more forceful measures. The UAE has used its heavy involvement in the Yemen conflict (as part of the Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthi rebels) to expand its geopolitical power in the region. In 2015, UAE-backed forces seized the port of Aden – once the British Empire’s busiest port – from the Houthis. In 2016, the UAE captured the ports of Mukalla and Ash-Shihr, about 300 and 375 miles east of Aden, respectively, as well as two strategically-located islands in the Bab el-Mandab Strait. Emirati troops secured the Red Sea port of Mokha in 2017, and are now engaged in an amphibious assault on Hodeidah, the only major Yemeni port not yet under Emirati control.
But why has the UAE shifted from being a buyer of security to a supplier of it? It could be argued that the UAE’s foray into East Africa is due to the importance of the Red Sea as a vital artery for the transportation of the country’s hydrocarbon exports. Through its two narrow chokepoints – the Suez Canal in the north and the Bab el-Mandab Strait in the south – around 3.9 and 4.8 million oil barrels, respectively, flowed every day in 2016. Control of seaports, moreover, helps in opening markets, generating economic opportunities and, in times of conflict, projecting military power.
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06-AUG-2018 :: ::The Indian Ocean Economy and a Port Race. @TheStarKenya Law & Politics |
As we scan the Blue Economy it is worth appreciating that Maritime shipping is the lifeblood of Africa, with over 90% of the continent’s imports and exports transported by sea. Today from Massawa, Eritrea [admittedly on the Red Sea] to Djibouti, from Berbera to Mogadishu, from Lamu to Mombasa to Tanga to Bagamoyo to Dar Es Salaam, through Beira and Maputo all the way to Durban and all points in between we are witnessing a Port race of sorts as everyone seeks to get a piece of the Indian Ocean Port action. China [ BRI initiative], the Gulf Countries [who now appear to see the Horn of Africa as their hinterland], Japan and India [to a lesser degree] are all jostling for optimal ’geo-economic’’ positioning. Overlay the Geopolitics and its worth noting that the Geopolitics has become much more fluid. Fluidity has been engendered by the spectacular arrival of Prime Minister Abiy in Ethiopia [which is land-locked, of course but a key Future Taker of Port facilities]
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09-JUL-2018 :: Tariff wars, who blinks first? @TheStarKenya International Trade |
James Dean was an iconic American actor, who tapped into the universal yearning and angst of nearly every adolescent human being with a raw connection that has surely not been surpassed since. In one of his most consequential films, Rebel without a Cause, two players (read, teenage boys) decide to settle a dispute (read, teenage girl) by way of near-death experiences. Each speeds an automobile towards a cliff. A simple rule governs the challenge: the first to jump out of his automo- bile is the chicken and, by universally accepted social convention, concedes the object in dispute. The second to jump is victorious, and, depending on context, becomes gang leader, prom king, etc.
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@GoldmanSachs Says Rising U.S. Rates 'Boiling the Frog' of Risk Assets @business International Trade |
Global investors may be underestimating the headwinds to financial assets posed by U.S. rates, they said. While the real rate on three-month U.S. Treasury bills -- or the nominal rate minus inflation (or inflation expectations) -- remains negative, Goldman forecasts the measure will diverge from other real rates in the developed and developing world over the next year-and-a-half.
Decent economic data from emerging markets helped mask the rise in real rates earlier this year, but that “changed in April, when a deceleration in EM data arguably exposed the risk consequences of this divergence in policy rates,” strategists Charles Himmelberg and James Weldon wrote in a report dated Sept. 16.
“As the rate of return on safe assets rises, the appeal of risky assets falls, and we increasingly worry that rising trend in U.S. real rates vs. global rates is ‘boiling the frog’ on risk appetite,” they added. “An increase in the fragility of risk appetite is already visible in EM, we would argue, but it logically extends to global risk assets more generally.”
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17-SEP-2018 :: The markets have been ''Like a patient etherized upon a table'' for a whole decade. International Trade |
I have digressed. The Point is we all live in the real time our Faces pressed against a high-frequency screen but a ten year sweep and perspective is not something we afford ourselves in this seriously fluid and real time World. As we look back, we can appreciate that G7 Central Banks basically flooded the World with Free Liquidity. This Liquidity Wave suppressed Bond Yields and markets world-wide surfed higher from Emerging to Frontier markets, crypto-currency, African Eurobonds [Over the past six years sub-Saharan governments have issued $81bn in dollar bonds]. The markets have been ''Like a patient etherized upon a table'' for a whole decade. Its as if the World became a Lehman to rescue itself from Lehman. Its been a decade long ''reverie''
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@abraajgroup Investors Prefer $1 Actis Bid to Gulf Offers @business Emerging Markets |
Actis’s $1 bid for the Middle East and North Africa private equity operations of Abraaj Group is favored by investors in the funds, despite higher offers linked to Persian Gulf-based firms, according to people familiar with the matter. Investors in the Abraaj funds would prefer to see the assets sold to an international private equity firm as part of a liquidation of the company, the people said. The bid by London-based Actis is ranked ahead of offers from Abu Dhabi Financial Group and Kuwaiti logistics firm Agility, which is making a joint bid with Centerbridge Partners, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. Actis’s expertise in running emerging-market funds appeals to the investors in Abraaj’s funds, who are more interested in a credible operational partner than receiving more money, the people said. Separately, Brookfield Asset Management Inc. is expected to acquire Abraaj’s Turkey private equity funds, and Colony Capital Inc. is the favorite to buy Abraaj’s Latin America funds, the people said. Final bids for Abraaj’s assets were made on Sept. 14, the people said. Representatives for Brookfield, Actis and Colony declined to comment. Once one of the most influential emerging-market investors, Abraaj was accused of misusing investor funds, and liquidators are now selling assets to repay creditors owed more than $1 billion. Previous attempts to sell the fund-management business had collapsed after investors rejected the proposals, people familiar with the matter have said. Ahead of its collapse earlier this year, Abraaj was found to have borrowed money from some of its own funds to meet operating expenses without investors’ consent, people with knowledge of the matter have said. Actis, which invests in Africa, Asia and Latin America, was spun out of CDC Group, the U.K. government’s development-finance institution, in 2004. It has raised $13 billion and currently has 54 portfolio companies, according to its website. CDC was one of the investors that hired a forensic accountant to examine what happened to some of their money in Abraaj’s funds.
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A year after U.S. sanctions ended, Sudan's economy unravels @ReutersAfrica Africa |
Restrictions on how much cash is available to commercial banks are among measures aimed at curbing rampant inflation and addressing an economic crisis that could derail President Omar al-Bashir’s plan to extend his nearly three decades in power. Though banks have not announced specific withdrawal limits, some have fallen in recent weeks to as little as 500 Sudanese pounds ($17.12) per day. “Even if this office is not secure from theft or from a fire, it’s still better than putting it in the bank,” said Mahmoud, fishing a small band of banknotes out of a filing cabinet. Last week, 11 months after the United States lifted 20-year-old trade sanctions, Bashir dissolved his government, citing Sudan’s “state of distress and frustration”, and slashed a third of ministries to cut costs. At over 60 percent, Sudan’s inflation rate is among the world’s highest, while its currency buys fewer than half as many dollars on the black market — which has effectively replaced the formal banking system — as it did a year ago. There are intermittent shortages of fuel and food, and the scrapping of bread subsidies in January, doubling the price, drew hundreds of protesters onto the streets. In December, the International Monetary Fund said central bank reserves stood at about $1.1 billion, or just enough for seven weeks of imports — roughly half the three months usually regarded as adequate. “There was a moment of beautiful optimism at the end of last year, when sanctions went away and we thought everyone is going to be all over us like a rash in terms of wanting to invest,” said Sam Bodley Scott, head of strategy at DAL Foods, one of Sudan’s biggest food producers. “But unfortunately, the local and domestic economic pressures, and the challenges associated with that, have far outweighed the benefits of the end of sanctions.” Sudan’s central bank has devalued its pegged currency from 6.7 to about 30 pounds per dollar in the last year, but the black market rate is still lower, at about 42 pounds. Currency dealers say dollar demand has increased as people convert their cash to preserve value. “There’s no confidence in the political system and the economy, and it’s driven a lot of people to put foreign exchange in their homes and mattresses and safes,” said Zuheir Saeed, CEO of Saeed Group, one of Sudan’s largest conglomerates. “Now even housewives when they have a surplus are putting it in dollars.” “This is the worst economic crisis we’ve ever faced. I’m afraid we’re facing a total collapse of the economy,” he said. “People have reached their maximum level of anger and you can expect anything after that. I don’t know what they will do.”
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Can Ethiopia's New Leader, a Political Insider, Change His Country from the Inside Out? @nytimes Africa |
LOS ANGELES — On the morning of his first day of school, when he was 7, Abiy Ahmed heard his mother whispering into his ears. “‘You’re unique, my son,’” he recalled her saying. “You will end up in the palace. So when you go to school, bear in mind that one day you’ll be someone which will serve the nation.” Mr. Abiy, now 42, not only ended up in the prime minister’s palace. He has also become the most closely watched leader in Africa: a man who says he wants to to change his country from the inside out — and fast. After taking office in March, he officially ended two decades of hostilities with Ethiopia’s longtime rival and neighbor, Eritrea. Beyond that, he started loosening a tightly controlled state-run economy, pledged multiparty elections in a country long known for jailing dissidents, and began wooing the government’s most strident critics: members of the Ethiopian diaspora, who have long organized insurgencies from afar. Leaders of a previously outlawed opposition group returned to the capital on Saturday. So are the risks: millions of disaffected youth, widespread poverty, a violent struggle over resources among Ethiopia’s competing ethnic groups, and a range of detractors from inside and outside the government who are either threatened by too much change — or angry that it’s not enough. Mr. Abiy’s changes are a major departure for Ethiopia, which has long relied on a government model that resembles China’s, emphasizing state-led economic growth and a suppression of political dissent. Representative Karen Bass, a California Democrat, who met with Mr. Abiy in late August, lauded his changes but warned of the risks of soaring demands “He has delivered, but if life doesn’t change for everyone, people get impatient,” she said. “People have unrealistic expectations.” More than just changing the way Ethiopia is run, Mr. Abiy says he wants to change the way Ethiopians see themselves. “Build bridges, break down walls,” is a constant refrain in his speeches, urging Ethiopians to step across religious and ethnic fault lines to view one another as compatriots, instead of rivals. “We just blame each other,” he said in the interview, barely concealing his distress. “We just hate each other.” He calls it “group thinking.” Mr. Abiy became a Protestant. He speaks of “the ideals of love, forgiveness and reconciliation.” “It’s not political language. It’s religious language,” observed Ephraim Isaac, an Ethiopian religious studies scholar who met with Mr. Abiy shortly after he took office. Immediately, he apologized for the killings of protesters by government forces. He lifted the ban on opposition groups and pardoned one of his country’s most high-profile political prisoners. Peace with Eritrea was a priority. He asked those who had contact with Eritrea — one of the most diplomatically isolated countries in the world — to reach out on his behalf. He wanted to talk. Mr. Abiy said help came from many foreign leaders, including the de facto leader of the United Arab Emirates, Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, who enjoys great influence in Asmara, the Eritrean capital. Mr. Abiy said one of the biggest priorities for the crown prince was peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea and he was careful to add that he had also spoken to several African leaders. “I’m not a king,” Mr. Abiy said. “My ultimate objective is to see democratic elections in Ethiopia. If that happened, I’ll feel I fulfilled my objective.”
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Rebels in Eastern Ethiopia to Seek Self-Determination Vote Africa |
A rebel group in Ethiopia said it will demand a referendum on self-determination for the country’s troubled, gas-rich Somali region during landmark peace talks with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government. The plan by the Ogaden National Liberation Front, which has staged a low-level insurgency in Ethiopia’s east for more than three decades, comes as Abiy invites once-banned opponents to take part in elections. The demands may aggravate a scramble for the region’s energy resources, including natural gas reserves the government estimates will eventually earn it $7 billion a year. At stake are an estimated 8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the Ogaden Basin, where exports are due to begin 2021 via a pipeline to neighboring Djibouti. A unit of China Poly Group Corp. has also started testing oil deposits. ''We want to achieve self-determination recognized by international law under the current Ethiopian constitution,” Ahmed Yassin Abdi, the ONLF’s foreign secretary, said by phone from the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. “We want our people to have a right to decide.” He said his group has no preconditions for the talks. The region’s new president expressed support for greater autonomy. Ethiopia’s constitution enshrines the rights of people with “a large measure” of common culture, customs, language, identity and “psychological makeup” in an “identifiable, predominantly contiguous territory” to seek self-determination and even establish their own states. “There are some areas where we agree,” Mustafa said in an interview in the national capital, Addis Ababa. “Yes, we want more autonomy for our region, genuine self-rule.”
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Nigeria Fires Back at @HSBC After Bank Criticises President @MBuhari Africa |
Nigeria accused HSBC Holdings Plc of money laundering after an analyst working for the lender said that a second term for President Muhammadu Buhari may stall economic recovery in Africa’s biggest oil producer.
“What killed Nigeria’s economy in the past was the unbridled looting of state resources by leaders, the type which was actively supported by HSBC,” presidential spokesman Garba Shehu said in a statement late Saturday. A bank that “continued until a few months ago to shield the stolen funds of one of the leaders of the Nigerian Senate has no moral right whatsoever” to criticize Buhari, he said.
Nigerian investigations revealed that HSBC had laundered more than $100 million for Sani Abacha -- a military dictator who died in 1998 -- in Jersey, Paris, London and Geneva, Shehu said. A spokesman for HSBC declined to comment. Nigeria’s allegations against the London-based lender come almost two months after it published a research note saying that a win for Buhari in February’s elections “raises the risk of limited economic progress and further fiscal deterioration, prolonging the stagnation of his first term.” The note was written by David Faulkner, a Johannesburg-based economist, on July 18, but was only widely publicized in Nigeria last week. “With the coming of President Buhari, it is not a secret that corruption, corrupt individuals, banks and other corporate entities that aided corrupt practices are under investigation for various offenses,” Shehu said in the statement. HSBC “is also suspected in the laundering of proceeds of corruption involving more than 50 other Nigerians.” The Nigerian government is facing intense criticism of its economic management in the run up to the elections and several ruling-party lawmakers have defected to the opposition. Nigeria was battered by the 2014 slump in crude prices and its economy is still struggling. The main opposition People’s Democratic Party said on Sept. 12 that HSBC’s research showed a Buhari victory “portends grave danger” for the country. “With the incoming election everybody is on edge and any analysis that is used to sway negative public opinion will be squashed as quickly as possible,” said Michael Famoroti, an economist at Lagos-based Vetiva Capital Management Ltd. “It’s possible the government is right in its claim but it completely missed the point because the issue HSBC raised had nothing to do with criminal or non-criminal activity. What is seen from their comments is that they don’t have the answers to the criticisms raised by HSBC.” HSBC has a representative office in Nigeria’s commercial capital of Lagos, but doesn’t operate a full banking unit in the country, unlike rivals such as Citigroup Inc. and Standard Chartered Plc.
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Nigeria hits back at HSBC after bank warns of economic stagnation Africa |
HSBC research note dated July 18 said a second Buhari term “raises the risk of limited economic progress and further fiscal deterioration, prolonging the stagnation of his first term, particularly if there is no move towards completing reform of the exchange rate system or fiscal adjustments that diversify government revenues away from oil.”
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Bharti Airtel picks banks for London IPO of Africa business: Report Live Mint Africa |
London: India’s biggest mobile carrier Bharti Airtel Ltd has chosen UBS, JP Morgan and Citi to coordinate the London initial public offering of its Africa business, two sources familiar with the matter said. In February Bharti Airtel Ltd said the holding company for its Africa operations was looking at a potential IPO. The appointment of banks for a London listing is a sign the process is progressing. Bharti Airtel and the banks declined to comment. The company has not given a timeframe for the listing to happen. The sources declined to comment on the valuation of the Africa operations but the business represents just over a quarter of the revenue of the listed entity, which has a $20 billion market capitalisation. Bharti Airtel owns telecom assets in 14 African countries. In the quarter ending June 2018, Africa revenue was Rs 20,100 crore and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) were Rs 6800 crore. Globally the company has almost 460 million customers. In the quarter ending June 2018, it posted revenue of $3 billion with EBITDA of more than $1 billion.
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LISTING AND UNBUNDLING OF VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS AS MULTICHOICE GROUP ON THE JSE @JSE_SENS Africa |
Naspers today announced its intention to list its Video Entertainment business separately on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and simultaneously to unbundle the shares in this business to its shareholders. The new company will be named MultiChoice Group Ltd ("MultiChoice Group") and will include MultiChoice South Africa Holdings (Pty) Ltd (and its subsidiaries, associates and/or affiliates), MultiChoice Africa Holdings B.V. (and its subsidiaries, associates and/or affiliates), MultiChoice Botswana (Pty) Ltd, MultiChoice Namibia (Pty) Ltd, NMS Insurance Services SA Ltd, (the aforesaid entities collectively "MultiChoice"), the African division of Showmax B.V. (and its subsidiaries, associates and/or affiliates), Irdeto Holdings B.V. (and its subsidiaries, associates and/or affiliates) and Irdeto South Africa (Pty) Ltd (collectively "Irdeto").
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17-SEP-2018 :: Bubbles are bursting just about everywhere. Kenyan Economy |
Now let me return to the Eurobond Markets where Africa issued $81b worth of bonds over the last six years. These markets trade continuously. Essentially these markets are a continuous score-card on the creditworthiness of the Issuer. its a relatively recent phenomenon and something many Policy-Makers will not have considered adequately. Balance sheets are maxed out.
There are no more ''Quaaludes'' and Policy Makers will no longer be able to pop them. -
''In prescribed doses, Quaaludes promotes relaxation, sleepiness and sometimes a feeling of euphoria. It causes a drop in blood pressure and slows the pulse rate. These properties are the reason why it was initially thought to be a useful sedative and anxiolytic It became a recreational drug due to its euphoric effect''
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