Company news in brief

Trustco ups stake in Legal Shield

Trustco Group Holdings yesterday announced its acquisition of an additional 11.35% interest in Legal Shield Holdings from Riskowitz Value Fund LP (RVF) for N$468 million.

This will increase Trustco’s holding in Legal Shield to 91.35%.

The strategic transaction fortifies Trustco's investment footprint in the insurance and real estate sectors in Namibia, the group said.

The assets acquired encompass Trustco Insurance Limited, Trustco Life Limited and an extensive real estate portfolio spanning 2 473 sellable hectares.

The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals and is expected to be finalised by the end of July, or as otherwise agreed upon by both parties.

Trustco will issue 400 million new shares to RVF at N$1.17c per share in two tranches of 200 million shares each.



Sasol suffers shock slump

Sasol shares yesterday fell the most in more than a year after the synthetic fuel and chemical maker reported issues throughout its South African operations.

The company that manufactures fuel from coal saw production volumes at its Secunda hub in the three months through March drop 9% from the previous quarter “due to reduced overall equipment availability and operational instability,” Sasol said in a sales update yesterday.

Volumes for the financial year are expected at between 6.9 and 7.1 million tons, missing guidance of 7-7.3 million tons.

By early afternoon yesterday, Sasol was 11% lower at R134.80 - down 42% from a year ago. Over the past five years, shares have lost 72% of their value.

Mining operations that have plagued Sasol showed improvement in fiscal third quarter, “albeit at a slower pace than anticipated,” the company said.

A fatality in March that brought the total for the year to five, along with other operational issues, has led to coal production tracking at the lower end of its guidance. – Fin24/Bloomberg



Capitec surges 8%

Shares in SA's biggest digital bank, Capitec, rocketed 8% yesterday when it upped its final dividend by almost a fifth and reported its number of active clients breached 22 million.

Capitec raised its final dividend by more than 19% to R33.45 per share after attributable headline earnings climbed 16% to R10.58 billion for the year to end-February. Along with an interim dividend of R15.30, its total payout climbed by 16% per share.

In morning trade, Capitec's shares had shot up 8%, valuing it at more than R250 billion on the JSE. The shares have risen by more than a third on a one-year basis.

Capitec has invested R6.3 billion in diversifying the company over the last three years, with this capital injection spanning the re-platforming of its systems and migrating its data to AWS Cloud services.

It has also expanded into business banking, gained its own life insurance licence and introduced new value-added services (VAS), which are now being used by 9.8 million of its clients. This is adding new revenue lines and cementing its digital position. – Fin24



Apple's smartphone shipments in China tumble

Apple's smartphone shipments in China tumbled 19% in the first quarter of the year, the worst performance since 2020, as the iPhone maker took a hit from Huawei's new product launches in the premium segment, market data showed.

Apple's share in the world's biggest smartphone market fell to 15.7% in the first quarter from 19.7% a year earlier. That put it almost level with Huawei, which saw sales jump 70%, according to research firm Counterpoint.

Apple lost its crown as the biggest smartphone seller in China to rival Vivo, sliding to third place in the quarter, followed by Huawei whose market share jumped to 15.5% from 9.3% a year earlier. Honor, a mass market brand spun out of Huawei, was in second place.

China is Apple's third-biggest market and generated around 17% of its total revenue in the October-December quarter.

Its market share loss in China comes after separate data showed earlier this month that the US firm suffered nearly a 10% drop in global smartphone shipments in the first quarter of 2024, hurt by intensifying competition by Android smartphone makers led by Samsung Electronics. - Reuters