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Amid load shedding, greylisting and news this week that the economy shrunk more than expected in the fourth quarter of 2022, SA companies are still trying finding ways to remain resilient.
Some are pushing ahead with new strategies, others are capitalising on demand brought on by the crisis, and others are trying to find a way out of takeover limbo.
Here are the top 10 business stories of the week:
Annual reports of SA's biggest companies are clear as mud, academic study finds
JSE board chairs’ statements in Top 40 companies’ annual reports are either unreadable or difficult to read, according to a new study.
Long words and sentences, technical language and the use of the passive voice were some of the problems identified by a team from the school of accounting, economics and finance at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
The motive for introducing complexity may be to "conceal undesirable information or make the statement less transparent", the academics say in the peer-reviewed journal Risks.
'Too much mudslinging' - Shoprite slams load shedding inaction, still plans to open 400 stores
With plans to open more than 400 new stores this year, and with a diesel bill for generators that could reach R1 billion this year, Shoprite is adopting a more conservative approach to payouts to shareholders.
Speaking to News24, CEO Pieter Engelbrecht said if the group didn't have to deal with the intense load shedding that gripped the country, it would have been able to increase its profits by more than 30% for the 26 weeks to 1 January - instead of the 10%, it reported.
He expressed concern about worsening load shedding, saying that in January alone, the group had spent more than R150 million on diesel for generators.
Years of power cuts and greylisting will further erode SA's investment status - Nedbank CEO
Nedbank CEO Mike Brown says while the bank hasn't yet seen major clients hold back on their capital spending, SA is still facing the steady erosion in its status as an investment destination amid the prospect of years of being greylisted, as well as more load shedding.
In Brown's view, although there have been many encouraging developments recently – like the appointment of an electricity minister, the government is simply not moving fast enough.
Speaking to News24 after releasing the banking group's 2022 financial results, he said Nedbank supported any development aimed at reducing and ending load shedding. This was President Cyril Ramaphosa's rationale for creating the position of electricity minister.
Standard Bank's decision to keep lending taps open pays off with record profit
Africa's biggest bank by assets, Standard Bank, has booked record profits for 2022 in part due to it benefitting from a big footprint on the continent, but also, it says, due a focus on the smaller details.
"We've got thousands of micro-strategies executed simultaneously," said Standard Bank CEO Sim Tshabalala after his bank gained 6% more customers in SA and grew its headline earnings by 37% to R34.2 billion to end December.
By comparison, Standard Bank's headline earnings stood at R27.2 billion just before the pandemic in 2019. Within a short time, plagued by a pandemic, a war and runaway global inflation, the bank has grown to generate R7 billion more in profit.
Momentum Metropolitan CEO will be 'irritating' competitors with new strategies
Momentum Metropolitan Holdings (MMH) says the risk market in South Africa is not growing – and life insurers will have to grab market share by outsmarting the competition in new ways. And MMH's CEO, Hillie Meyer, says he is prepared to irritate the competition.
The group's largest life insurance business, Momentum Life, implemented digital underwriting for its flagship Myriad products last year. Instead of the traditional lengthy process to apply for cover, new clients now only need to complete an automated online application by answering a few questions about their health and lifestyle. The whole process takes only 10 minutes.
The platform has allowed Momentum to cut underwriting turnaround times and issue some policies immediately.
Greylisting hit bond trading, but not equity inflows, says JSE CEO
After the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) greylisted South Africa last month, the JSE saw an immediate fall in foreign inflows to its bond market. However, trading has been relatively normal in equities, said CEO Leila Fourie.
"I think the long-term impact is still too early to gauge. But the equity market foreign flows and the indices had very limited fallout in reaction to the greylisting," said Fourie.
Fourie hopes February's decreasing foreign inflows into the bond market was a short-term reaction. The JSE already have the due diligence changes in place that the FATF requires.
'Very destructive' - Royal Bafokeng Platinum in limbo as takeover tussle drags on
A hotly contested corporate takeover of Royal Bafokeng Platinum has dragged out for 16 months - and counting - and is preventing the mining company from deploying capital, pursuing growth strategies and retaining staff.
Impala Platinum and Northam have been slugging it out for a controlling share of Royal Bafokeng Platinum since late 2021.
Implats made a mandatory offer to buy out all RBPlat shareholders in January 2022. Despite obtaining approval from competition authorities, Impala's offer has yet to close as the compliance certificate from the Department of Trade and Industry's Takeover Regulation Panel remains outstanding. In November last year, Northam also made an offer to RBPLat shareholders - one which is of higher value but carries more uncertainty.
Bidvest rockets 15%, sees fivefold increase in renewable energy volumes
Bidvest's share price rocketed almost 15% on Monday, as it reported double-digit increases across its key financial metrics in the first half of its financial year.
The company reported a fivefold increase in volumes for the renewable energy components its supplies.
And with consumers and businesses all scrambling to find ways to mitigate the fallout from SA's energy crisis, which is showing no signs of abating, the JSE-listed industrial conglomerate is gearing up for even stronger demand.
Hulamin hungry for scrap as can demand grows
Hulamin is intent on increasing its scrap consumption as it seeks to expand production in higher-margin items such as aluminium cans, which are displacing plastics as the preferred vessel for beverages.
The company, which specialises in rolled aluminium products for precision and high-technology applications, said domestic demand for beverage cans would grow at a cumulative 5% per annum over the next five years, as plastic continues to fall out of favour.
Linked to its ambition to grow its can product offering is a scrap utilisation plan which will see Hulamin's consumption of scrap for production processes grow - a move that will conserve energy and bring down costs.
Debt-laden Nampak cans special shareholder meeting; plots way forward with banks, advisors
Africa's biggest packaging group Nampak has shelved an extraordinary meeting scheduled for Wednesday, where it had hoped to get shareholders to green-light an increase in the number of shares to pave the way for a rights issue of about R1.5 billion.
Nampak, valued at about R650 million on the JSE, is struggling under a large debt pile, much of which is due to be repaid by March. It has decided to cancel the meeting to give its advisors, management and lenders more time to agree on a new plan.
CEO Erik Smuts told News24 that what all the debt advisors would now do was to look at all the plans of the business and "then determine the debt capacity" of it.
