COMPANY NEWS IN BRIEF

Competition watchdog finds Sasol guilty

The Competition Commission has referred a complaint against Sasol for excessive pricing of natural piped gas to the Competition Tribunal.

The commission found that Sasol Gas contravened the Competition Act and extracted markups of up to 72% on the product, with excessive pricing having continued for almost a decade to date.

Industrial, commercial, and domestic customers in South Africa use natural gas as an alternative source of energy to electricity. Sasol Gas – which sources natural gas from the Pande and Temane gas fields in Mozambique – is the only supplier of natural piped gas in the South Africa, selling to gas traders and end-users in the country through a network of transmission and distribution pipelines.

Publicly available information indicates that the Pande and Temane gas fields in Mozambique are likely to start declining in 2025 and are likely to be depleted between 2029 and 2030.

This prosecution stems from three complaints lodged against Sasol Gas last year by Egoli Gas, the Industrial Gas Users Association of South Africa (IGUA-SA), and Spring Lights Gas.

"The commission relied on publicly available information to assess the prices charged by Sasol Gas to the complainants against the costs of supplying natural piped gas," the watchdog said in a statement.-Fin24

Sangqu named new Transnet chair

Andile Sangqu, a former top executive at Anglo American SA who previously served as the vice president of the Minerals Council of South Africa, has been named the new chairperson of Transnet.

Sangqu, a CA, was named executive head of Anglo American SA in June 2015. After stepping down in late 2019, he was named as executive-in-residence at the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science.

Before joining Anglo American, Sangqu had stints at Impala Platinum and Glencore Xstrata. He is one of nine new members to join the struggling state-owned entity's board.

Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan said the new appointments would strengthen the group's corporate governance.

"They will ensure strategic alignment in Transnet’s pursuit of its mandate as a key lever and driver of our economic engine, development and transformation," he said.

In addition to Sangqu, the other new appointments are Lebogang Letsoalo, Martin Debel, Dipak Patel, Busisa Jiya, Mosadiwamaretlwe Pearl Zambane, Boitumelo Sedupane, Refilwe Buthelezi, and Elias Monage.-Fin24

Foxconn pulls from R360bn deal in India

Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn withdrew from a US$19.4 billion (R362 billion) deal with India's Vedanta to make semiconductors in the South Asian nation owing to "challenging gaps", it announced Tuesday.

The world's top iPhone assembler signed an agreement in September with Vedanta to set up a chip factory - which would also produce display screens for phones and tablets - in India's Gujarat state.

The plan was to boost New Delhi's self-reliance in the technology supply chain, given that semiconductors are an essential component of nearly all modern electronics - powering everything from coffee machines to electric cars.

"There was recognition on both sides that the project was not moving fast enough, there were challenging gaps we were not able to smoothly overcome, as well as external issues unrelated to the project," Hon Hai Technology Group - Foxconn's official name - said in a statement.

The deal would have seen Vedanta - one of India's biggest mining companies take a 60 percent share in the joint venture, while Foxconn would have the minority stake.-Fin24

SABC hampered by absent leadership

The SABC has been silent after its chief financial officer revealed that the struggling South African public broadcaster is hampered by absent leadership with "no sense of urgency in the executive team", is running "on autopilot" and is once again barrelling towards "day zero" where it won't be able to pay salaries and might be placed in business rescue.

After mounting losses in the past decade, the SABC is set to record a massive financial loss of over R1 billion for its 2022/23 financial year, which has mushroomed from an estimated R608 million loss that was projected in December 2022.

Rank-and-file SABC staffers as well as production companies doing business with the broadcaster are wondering whether salaries will remain paid and if a new round of retrenchments, or yet another turnaround plan, might be on the cards.

After a R3.2 billion government bailout in 2019 in the form of a loan guarantee, the SABC – which had to function without a SABC board for over half a year until a new one was appointed in April – is once again struggling to pay bills, with warning lights flickering over its ongoing ability to pay staff in the coming months.

The SABC has also been losing senior staff. After his five-year term ended in July, former CEO Madoda Mxakwe was replaced by the SABC’s head of radio, Nada Wotshela, as acting CEO, after the broadcaster failed to start the process in time to find and appoint a new CEO.-Fin24