Finance

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – South Africa has been hit by rolling power cuts less than a month after President Cyril Ramaphosa gave renewed assurances that energy constraints were being addressed, making his pledges ring hollow and highlighting his administration’s inability to tackle the crisis. While Eskom Holdings Ltd., the state utility that provides about 95% of the nation’s electricity and is overseen by Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan, has borne the brunt of the blame for the…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – The United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson will tell European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday that the British government is only interested in negotiating a free trade agreement with its largest market, and that he’s determined to achieve it by the end of the year. In their first meeting since von der Leyen took up her post — and since Johnson won last month’s election — the U.K. prime minister…

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa) – U.S. President Donald Trump and his top aides spent the weekend arguing that the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani would deter future attacks and make the Middle East safer. Instead, U.S. policy in the region seems to be going in the opposite direction of what Trump has long promised — with more U.S. troops going in, not fewer; an Iran defiant, not cowed and broken by sanctions; and regional allies giving…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Takeaway.com NV is set to declare final victory in the five-month takeover battle for U.K. food-delivery company Just Eat Plc, people with knowledge of the matter said. Investors holding more than half of Just Eat stock have indicated they’ll agree to Takeaway’s all-stock bid, which values the company at about 6 billion pounds ($7.8 billion), according to the people. The preliminary tally includes those who plan to formally tender in…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – South Africa’s energy crisis eased as state power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. scrambled to repair broken plants and supplemented supply using gas turbines and pumped-storage facilities. Power cuts, known locally as load shedding, should be limited to 2,000 megawatts on Wednesday — down from a peak of 6,000 megawatts on Monday — and are expected to end next week, Eskom said in an emailed statement. The outages temporarily…

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa) – Citadel Securities is sometimes dismissively referred to as “Citadel’s trading arm” — seen as a forgotten backwater of Ken Griffin’s hedge fund empire, where quants toil on complex algorithms to arbitrage tiny differences in stock prices or calculate bid-ask spreads for Treasuries. It’s much more than that. The market-making firm, which is actually separate from Griffin’s hedge fund, generated $3.5 billion of revenue last year — more than the…

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa) – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pulled off a delicate political maneuver by announcing in quick succession articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump as well as the delivery of a trade deal that’s one of his highest priorities. The seemingly conflicting turn of events in the space of a single hour on Tuesday illustrates the political landscape Pelosi faces heading into the 2020 election year that will decide control…