Company news in brief

Pioneer Food FY profit halves following drought

South Africa's Pioneer Food Group reported a 49% drop in full-year profit due to high maize prices during the first part of the year following a severe drought.

Diluted and adjusted headline earnings per share (HEPS) fell to 415 cents for the year ended Sept. 30, from 820 cents in the same period last year.

Pioneer, which uses maize is many of its food products, said its earnings were impacted by the constrained trading conditions and an unfavourable procurement position for the staple crop until May 2017 following the drought. – Nampa/Reuters

Dividend bonanza in Asia

Dividend payouts by Asia's biggest companies are poised for their biggest increase in six years as profits surge and pressure grows on firms to be more generous with their shareholders.

Across Asia, dividend payouts in 2017 are expected to grow by 12% year-on-year, a Reuters analysis showed, marking the largest increase in payouts since 2011.

MSCI's Asia ex-Japan index has risen about 30% this year and is at its highest since 2007. Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand have forward dividend yields in excess of 3%, much higher than United States' 1.9%. Asia's average yield stood at 2.4%. – Nampa/Reuters

Volkswagen to invest billions in core brand

Volkswagen will invest 22.8 billion euros (US$26.9 billion) in its main car brand over the next five years.

Most of that sum, around 14 billion euros, will be spent in Germany. One of the key measures included a 1 billion euro injection to transform the carmaker's Zwickau plant into a pure e-mobility facility.

Analysts see reviving the VW brand, which has long suffered from high staff and development costs, as crucial to the group's ability to recover from a diesel emissions scandal that has gripped the carmaker. – Nampa/Reuters

Toshiba to issue US$5.3 bn in shares

Embattled Japanese conglomerate Toshiba plans to raise US$5.3 billion by issuing new shares, a move aimed at avoiding a humiliating delisting from the Tokyo bouse.

The number of new shares is roughly half the number of currently listed shares.

Toshiba is on the ropes after the disastrous acquisition of US nuclear energy firm Westinghouse, which racked up billions of dollars in losses before being placed under bankruptcy protection.

The Tokyo-based conglomerate logged a net loss of US$436 million for the April-September fiscal first half. – Nampa/AFP

Alibaba goes offline with stake in China's top grocer

Internet giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said it would invest HK$22.4 billion (US$2.87 billion) for a major stake in China's top hypermart operator, Sun Art Retail Group Ltd, part of a wider push into offline retail.

Alibaba has invested upwards of $9.3 billion in brick-and-mortar stores since 2015. It has launched many un-staffed concept shops in the past year, including grocery and coffee stores.

The US$474 billion firm is taking more risks to secure offline, rural and overseas buyers as China's urban e-commerce market shows signs of saturating, including purchasing extensive infrastructure which it had previously avoided. – Nampa/Reuters