Flash Briefing: Shoprite focus on home market; more countries halt Astra vaccine; Astral sees slump; Eskom; Bitcoin

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  • Shoprite reported a sales increase in the six months ended in December. Adjusting for the closure of the SA LiquorShop business as a result of the nationwide lockdown, Supermarkets RSA business grew sales by almost 8%. Headline earnings per share increased by nearly 11%. In the reporting period, the group created over 4 000 new jobs. The Supermarkets business outside of South Africa only achieved marginal growth. The company closed the last of its Kenyan stores in February this year and is at the approval stage in the sale of its Nigerian supermarket operation.
  • Astral expects earnings per share and headline earnings per share for the six months ending 31 March to be down by close to 50%. The company says the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown on the economy, and constrained consumer spending has been evident throughout the period. Astral says its poultry operations have not been able to recover significant increases in feed costs in the selling price of poultry products.
  • Eskom said it’s undertaking long-overdue repairs at its facilities leading to a high risk of nationwide outages. The utility has implemented electricity rationing on 19 days so far this year after record blackouts last year. “We will continue to take units off and maintain them properly,” said Chief Operating Officer Jan Oberholzer. He added that; “The power system remains vulnerable and volatile, with the risk of load-shedding significantly reduced after the completion of maintenance by September”.
  • Bitcoin has given up all the gains made over the weekend when prices reached a record $61,000. The largest cryptocurrency rocketed, only to fall in the following days. It sank almost 7% on Monday and was little changed today, according to Bloomberg. Vijay Ayyar, head of Asia Pacific with crypto exchange Luno in Singapore, says the volatility is due to profit-taking after Bitcoin’s recent run. He predicted that prices may bounce back to $62,000 before another slide.
  • Germany, Italy, France and Spain joined other European countries that have temporarily stopped using the Covid-19 shot made by AstraZeneca over blood-clot concerns. According to The Wall Street Journal, this will slow the already sluggish rollout of vaccines and may damage the credibility of the vaccine itself. Denmark, Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands and Iceland are also waiting for the outcome of an investigation by the European Medicines Agency. Subscribe to BizNews Premium for full access to The Wall Street Journal and more on this story.

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