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In a slower day for corporate news, Anglo American subsidiary De Beers reported slightly healthier stone demand, though conditions are still difficult. In international news, messaging app Telegram is closing in on 1 billion users, while Tesla will ask shareholders to approve a massive pay deal for CEO Elon Musk.
Anglo American subsidiary De Beers reported that rough diamond sales of $445 million (about R8.5 billion) in its third sales cycle picked up from $431 million in its second, but were still down almost 18% year on year. "Many diamond businesses are continuing to take a cautious approach to purchases amidst the uncertain economic landscape and the slow pace of growth in China," CEO Al Cook said in a statement. "However, we saw a further uptick in our rough diamond sales in our third sales cycle, ahead of what is usually a slower period for rough diamond demand in the second quarter of the year."
Metals group Insimbi Industrial warned shareholders to expect a between 50% and 60% fall in headline earnings per share for its year to end-February, hit by second-half challenges, including port woes and lower-than-expected commodity prices. High interest rates, protracted periods of load shedding and the impact of the ban on exports of recycled metals on the business, also weighed, it said. The intense focus on cost savings yielded notable benefits in offsetting the impact of these challenges. Valued at about R325 million on the JSE, it ferrous and non-ferrous alloys, refractory and foundry materials, plastic blow moulding, and alloy recycling processes, among other things. Insimbi was down just over 1% on Wednesday afternoon and has given back about 29% in the past year.
