Flash Briefing: Gold; Covid-19 vaccine; corruption – SA, Brazil; economy; Pick n Pay; Capitec

By Jackie Cameron

• Barrick Gold Corp.'s top executive says the gold industry needs more consolidation so it can increase exploration to boost depleting reserves, lure more generalist investors and improve efficiencies, says Bloomberg. The flurry of deals that characterised the sector in the past two years will likely continue, with miners in Australia already "stamping their mark" on the industry, Chief Executive Officer Mark Bristow said in a virtual South African mining conference. Mergers and acquisitions are likely to dominate the sector in Africa, and are needed in Canada, where the world's second-largest gold miner is based. For more on investing in mining, do listen to this week's Inside Investing podcast, with BizNews founder Alec Hogg, who catches up with mining expert and entrepreneur Bernard Swanepoel on the Joburg Mining Indaba.
• As SA's crackdown on corruption gathers steam, in Brazil efforts to stop graft are winding down. President Jair Bolsonaro said he's put an end to the country's long-running Car wash probe, which has sent hundreds of Brazil's political and business power brokers to jail, because corruption is no longer an issue in his government, reports Bloomberg.The far-right president, elected in 2018 on a law-and-order platform, said he was "proud" to see the end of the operation that, since its creation in 2014, landed behind bars former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his political rival, as well as chief executives of construction companies who were sentenced for participating in a large bribery scheme that diverted billions of dollars from public coffers. Bolsonaro has been accused of meddling in police affairs, says the news agency.
• President Donald Trump said he won't participate in the second scheduled debate with Joe Biden after the organising group said it would be held remotely.
• The executive director of the European Medicines Agency said a Covid-19 vaccine is looking "unlikely" by year-end. This come as cases pass 36.1m; deaths top 1.05m, says Bloomberg. In South Africa, just under 17,300 people are reported as having died from Covid-19, by the government.
• The coronavirus crisis is expected to drive a 3.3% contraction in sub-Saharan African economies in 2020 and could push 40 million people into extreme poverty, the World Bank said on Thursday. The Washington-based lender said growth in the region would recover in 2021, with economies growing by 2.1%, below 2019's growth of 2.4%. "The Covid-19 pandemic has taken a large toll on economic activity in sub-Saharan Africa, putting a decade of hard-won economic progress at risk," the bank is reported by Bloomberg as saying.