A third of Super Group's new car sales in South Africa now come from Chinese and Indian brands
A year ago it was a fifth. The brands changed, the volumes nearly doubled, and the margin got thinner.
Business Bagel News
Daily news from the Business Bagel desk — the markets, money and company stories shaping South Africa, reported fast and kept clear.
South Africa's economy shrank last quarter, and the households everyone worries about were not the problem
Households and the government both spent more between April and June, and the economy still went backwards. The damage came in through the ports.
Dangote's refinery is going public in Africa's biggest ever share sale, and it wants ten million small investors
The offer opens on 14 September at 525 naira a share, and the money is going into doubling the plant.
Big story
South Africa’s newest bank is set to ramp up lending after attracting 742,000 customers
Old Mutual's interim results show OM Bank taking in deposits quickly, and the lending that has to pay for it only starting now.
Editor’s pick
DStv has built its first dedicated sports package, but Springboks’ games are not included
MultiChoice moves cricket and the Champions League down the price list on 17 September, and leaves Springbok rugby, Formula 1 and the golf majors where they were.
The JSE has scrapped a popular investment index, forcing two major funds to find replacements
The FTSE/JSE Rafi 40 is gone, and the Satrix and Old Mutual funds built on it are measuring themselves against something else.
Discovery Bank has made its first annual profit, seven years after Discovery started building it
The first full-year profit is small. The 70% of new business arriving from strangers is the number the strategy actually rests on.
Old Mutual’s underlying business had a strong half, despite a 30% drop in earnings
Two measures in the same results went opposite ways, and which one a reader looks at decides what happened.
South Africa just had its best ever second quarter for farm exports, and Africa bought most of it
Africa bought two fifths of the quarter, and the chief economist behind the numbers is writing warnings rather than victory laps.
A herpes virus is killing South African sardines, and the canned fish aisle is carrying on regardless
Pilchard herpesvirus has been confirmed in South African sardines for the first time, and the safety of a tin turns on the canning process rather than the sea.
AVI's revenue barely moved this year, and it is paying shareholders a special dividend of 300 cents anyway
Cost cutting, a fishing turnaround and a smaller payroll turned 1.4% more sales into 4.4% more profit, and a payout on top.
South Africa is taking another crack at a problem we have complained about for years: expensive data
The regulator has gazetted a market inquiry into whether South Africans can afford to be online, four years after the auction that was meant to settle it.