Tag: AfricaNews

{{South African pension manager Alexander Forbes on Friday priced its initial public offering at the middle of its planned range on Friday, raising 3.7 billion rand ($345 million) ahead of its return to the Johannesburg exchange.}}

Alexander Forbes, which was taken private by a group of investors including buyout firm Actis in 2007, said it priced the IPO at 7.5 rand a share, compared to its planned range of 6.9 to 8.05 rand.

The company said the total size of the offer was 496.7 million shares, including an overallotment option of up to 64.8 million shares.

Deutsche Bank AG, Morgan Stanley and FirstRand unit Rand Merchant Bank were the joint bookrunners on the sale.($1 = 10.7091 South African Rand)

{{Zimbabwe’s foreign affairs minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi says his country is ready to host the 34th SADC summit to be held in Victoria Falls next month. }}

The minister, according to video footage posted on YouTube by The Herald, said preparations were on track and “everything will be in place by the time that the summit is held”.

A report by the News Day, however, said President Robert Mugabe’s cash-strapped government was banking on financial support from the private and corporate sectors to host the summit.

The summit which kicks off on 8 August will be held under the theme: SADC Strategy for Economic Transformation: Leveraging the Region’s Diverse Resources for Sustainable Economic and Social Development through Beneficiation and Value Addition.

Mumbengegwi said the theme was selected “very very carefully” because Zimbabwe believed strongly in the importance of beneficiating and value adding of natural resources.

He said Mugabe had never stopped talking about the issue of the importance of natural resources and how Africa, as a continent should benefit from them.

Mumbengegwi decried the continued exportation of Africa’s natural resources in their raw form, a situation he said saw the continent benefiting only 10% of the value of the products.

{click to watch video}
news24

{{France and Mali signed a new defence pact on Wednesday, an agreement that will let Paris maintain its prominent role in a former colony whose desert north was occupied by al Qaeda-linked rebels until they were defeated by French troops last year.}}

France has sought to wind down direct involvement in former colonies in Africa, where troops frequently intervened during the decades after independence.

But weak local armies, the Islamist threat and a series of political crises and rebellions have led to major French interventions in recent years.

The new pact, a defence cooperation treaty that replaces a 1985 agreement, outlines the framework for French intelligence sharing, training and equipping of Malian troops.

French troops still tracking down Islamists in Mali are operating under a separate operational agreement signed last year, but the new deal ensures long-term military ties between the two nations.

Last year, France dispatched war planes and thousands of troops to beat back an advance by Islamist fighters who took advantage of a coup in the capital and a rebellion by separatist Tuareg rebels to seize Mali’s desert north the year before.

Most of the Islamists fled the superior French firepower and the French deployment in Mali has since been reduced to about 1,700.

However, underscoring how the threat is now scattered across the vast Sahara-Sahel band, France is in the process of reorganising its presence in the region with troops in Mali being folded into a 3,000-strong anti-Islamist force also operating in Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso.

The defence agreement comes on the eve of a visit to the region by French President Francois Hollande, who will travel to Ivory Coast, Niger and Chad.

{wirestory}