NATIONAL NEWS - Here’s what caught our attention on Thursday
1. Mr Price CEO to bid farewell
Following eight years as Mr Price’s CEO, Stuart Bird will hand in his resignation and part ways with the retailer on 1 January 2019, and as an executive director at the end of March 2019. Bird’s position will be taken over by the current CFO, Mark Blair, effective January 1, 2019.
2. Sars takes its report to parliament
Speaking before parliament, current acting Sars commissioner, Mark Kingon said Sars is an important organisation for the country and admitted to ‘dropping the ball’ with regard to non-compliance to the legislation and irregular expenditure. Sars delivered a 6.3% revenue growth, 94% filing compliance and says that 17.2 million tax returns were submitted in 2018.
Read: Sars presents its annual report to parliament
3. Economic events
Mining production and sales data for August is expected to be released on Thursday. In July, mining production and sales numbers decreased by 5.2% year-on-year, while seasonally-adjusted mining production decreased by 8.6% in July, compared with June 2018, data from Stats SA shows.
South Africa’s vehicle trade sales data for August is also expected to be released on Thursday. In July, vehicle trade sales rose by 7.7% year-on-year.
Seasonally-adjusted vehicle trade sales decreased by 1.0% in July compared with June 2018.
Updates to follow on Moneyweb.
4. Spear Reit results
Spear REIT is reporting an increase in headline earnings to R76 million for the six months ended August 31, 2018, compared with the R52 million reported in 2017. Diluted headline earnings per share and headline earnings per share is flat at 44.25 cents. The company says its interim distribution target of 41.73 cents has been reached and it expects a 9% to 11% growth forecast for financial year 2019.
5. Sasol production report
Energy company Sasol issued a production report for the three months ended September 30, 2018, in which it says there was higher productivity across most of its operations due to the higher Brent crude oil price and the weaker rand exchange rate. The company says the delivery thus far indicates that it will meet its revised production and sales target for the year.
