Company News in Brief
Ugandan leader meets Starlink to discuss entry to East African nationUgandan President Yoweri Museveni said on Tuesday that he had a "productive meeting" with the representatives of tech billionaire Elon Musk's Starlink, which is looking to establish a presence in the East African country.
A unit of SpaceX, the satellite internet company is rapidly expanding its services on the African continent and is already live in more than a dozen countries. It was granted licences by Somalia and Lesotho earlier this month.
"I appreciate their commitment to providing low-cost internet in hard-to-reach areas and establishing a presence in Uganda. They are welcome," Museveni said on X.
Ugandan consumers have long complained about the high cost and unreliability of domestic internet services, which some blame on the lack of sufficient competition in the market.
It was unclear if Starlink had already formally applied for a license to operate in Uganda. A spokesperson for the sector regulator Uganda Communications Commision (UCC) did not respond to a Reuters request for a comment.-REUTERS
South African pharma company Aspen's shares plunge day after profit warning
Shares in South Africa's Aspen Pharmacare dropped more than 30% on Wednesday, a day after the company issued a profit warning over what it called a "material contractual dispute".
Aspen alerted shareholders to the dispute after the close of the local stock market on Tuesday.
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It said it related to a manufacturing and technology agreement with a contract manufacturing customer for mRNA products, saying details were subject to contractual confidentiality.
Normalised earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization from its manufacturing business could be 2 billion rand ($107.28 million) lower than last guided in its full-year results, it added.-REUTERS
Former Shell oil traders set up trading house with focus on Africa, sources say
Several former traders from oil major Shell have set up trading house Atmin, backed by Afreximbank, to focus on African oil trading, two trading sources familiar with the development said.
The move takes place as oil majors and Western banks retreat from Africa and the continent is facing a decline in oil and gas production due to under-investment, while also spending $30 billion annually on fuel imports.
Billions of barrels of oil and gas in Africa are at risk of being stranded as a race among global producers is heating up to extract as many resources as possible before the energy transition cuts demand for fossil fuels.
Atmin, which stands for Africa Trading Minerals, will be run by Ajay Oommen, the sources said. Oommen worked for 17 years at Shell including as head of the low sulphur crude desk, which traded up to 1.5 million barrels per day of oil, including from Africa.
Atmin will also hire Vikram Thakur, who worked for 18 years at Shell, including in business development, trading origination and structured finance, as well as Joseph Kanaan, a trader at Shell for 11 years.-REUTERS
Afreximbank launches $3bn fund to fuel Africa's refineries
African Export-Import Bank has rolled out a $3 billion revolving credit line that will enable African and Caribbean buyers to source petrol, diesel, jet fuel and other products from refineries on the continent more easily.
The bank expects the facility to provide $10–14 billion of trade finance over its first three years and help chip away at the region's roughly $30 billion annual fuel import bill, it said.
Both oil export- and import-dependent economies have been whipsawed this year by a sharp fall in crude prices and a jump in freight costs. Brent crude is down more than 20% since mid-January on supply dynamics and on fears that a global trade war will sap demand.
Meanwhile, insurance costs for ships using the Red Sea have climbed again after renewed Houthi attacks prompted U.S. airstrikes on Yemen in March, adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to a typical fuel cargo.-REUTERS