SA stocks end lower, Nampak slips on write-down

JOHANNESBURG, March 25 (Reuters) – South African stocks fell more than 1 percent on Wednesday, with packaging firm Nampak sliding after saying it would write-down the value of its flexibles division before selling it while cancelling the sale of another unit.

Shares in Nampak, Africa's biggest packaging company, which plans to sell non-core assets, fell 3.3 percent to 40.50 rand.

"It will effect earnings in the short term because they had to write down the value of the asset before selling it," said Chad Bushnell, a trader at Anglorand Asset Managers, adding that this would help Nampak expand its core assets.

The benchmark Top-40 index shaved off 1.18 percent to 46,182 and the All-share gave up 1.03 to 52,313.

Plastic packaging company Astrapak slid 4.8 percent after the company said it would sell bottle-making unit Cinqpet for 44 million rand ($4 million).

Other decliners were SABMiller which fell 1.2 percent after it was downgraded by Investec and Times Media which slipped 0.19 when if flagged lower first half earnings.

Decliners outnumbered advancers 229 to 99 with 46 shares unchanged, according to preliminary bourse data. Activity was relatively brisk with around 218 million shares changing hands, above last year's daily average of 183 million shares.

($1 = 11.8533 rand) (Reporting by Zandi Shabalala; Editing by James Macharia)