Company news in brief

Naspers reports 65% jump in H1 profit

Africa's biggest company by market value, Naspers, reported a 65% in first-half profit, boosted by internet businesses that include the largest stake in China's Tencent Holdings.

Naspers, which owns about a third of the Chinese internet company, said headline earnings rose to US$1.5 billion, or 350 cents per share, from US$914 million, or 212 cents per share.

Its internet division contributed 77% of Naspers' revenue, up from 72% a year earlier.

The share price of Naspers, which also has stakes in Germany's Delivery Hero, Russia's Mail.ru and India's Flipkart , has doubled this year buoyed by Tencent's sharp climb. – Nampa/Reuters

Lonmin to cut social, discretionary spending

Troubled platinum producer Lonmin plans to cut spending on social and labour projects and freeze "non-critical" recruitment, part of an array of measures to save cash.

In a presentation to stakeholders earlier this month, the company signalled it would stop all discretionary spending and save R250 million via energy and water initiatives. It also reiterated plans to cut capital spending.

Cutting expenditure on social and labour plans - called SLPs in South Africa - could be problematic as mining companies are required to meet certain obligations to provide housing and other services to the communities around their shafts to maintain their operating licences. – Nampa/Reuters

VW expects new sales record in 2017

Volkswagen is headed for record group sales this year as the "strong trend" in deliveries is set to continue with November and December figures, chief executive Matthias Mueller said.

Registrations at the world's largest automotive group including the Audi and Porsche nameplates jumped 8.2% in October to 940 800 cars, extending the 10-month gain to 3.2% or 8.75 million.

In 2016, the first full year after VW's emissions test-cheating "Dieselgate" scandal, group sales increased 3.8% to a record 10.3 million cars, helped by a double-digit increase in China and gains in Europe. – Nampa/Reuters

SAA's losses set to widen

Losses at South African Airways (SAA) are set to widen to R4 billion in 2017/18 from a previous estimate of 2.8 billion, the state airline's chief financial officer said, piling further pressure on government finances.

CFO Phumeza Nhantsi told parliament's finance committee that the higher projected losses for 2017/18 were related to the retirement of five leased narrow-body aircraft, which meant flights had been cancelled and planes grounded.

Vuyani Jarana, SAA's CEO, said the airline had outstanding debt of R13.8 billion as of this month and that it needed to pay back domestic lenders and US bank Citi R4 billion by March 2018. – Nampa/Reuters

GSK in African study of injectable HIV drug

ViiV Healthcare, GlaxoSmithKline Plc's HIV unit, has started an African study to evaluate long-acting injectable drug for the prevention of HIV infection in sexually active women.

The cabotegravir study seeks to enrol 3 200 women aged 18 to 45 years from Sub-Saharan African countries.

The HPTN 084 Phase III study will evaluate injections given every two months, ViiV Healthcare said. – Nampa/Reuters