Breaking News today –  Wednesday 23 October 2024

Business & Tech News

Tokyo’s Metro Steams Ahead on Listing: In what has been Japan’s largest initial public offering (IPO) in six years, Tokyo Metro’s shares gained an incredible 44% on their market launch on Wednesday morning (23 Oct), amounting to a significant $2.3 billion revenue with promises of generous dividends. The Metro’s stock’s price was at 1,722 yen ($11.35) at the midday trading break giving Tokyo Metro, one of the capital’s two major subway operators, a valuation of roughly 1 trillion yen. The company raised 348.6 billion yen in an IPO that was more than 15 times oversubscribed. Over six million commuters use the nine-line metro for transport daily in Tokyo.

Qualcomm Strong Armed over Chips: A dispute over chip development rights has led Arm Holdings, to cancelling its architectural license agreement with Qualcomm. The license agreement allows Qualcomm to use ARM’s intellectual property in its chip designs, including its latest processing units developed for the Microsoft Co-pilot range of laptops and computers. This is the latest contestation in an ongoing legal battle between the two companies. Arm, sued Qualcomm in 2022 for failing to negotiate a new license after it acquired Nuvia. Arm had previously said the current design planned for Microsoft’s Copilot+ laptops is a direct technical descendant of Nuvia’s chip and it had cancelled the license for these chips. “This is more of the same from ARM – more unfounded threats designed to strong-arm a long standing partner, interfere with our performance-leading CPUs, and increase royalty rates regardless of the broad rights under our architecture license,” a Qualcomm spokesperson said in a statement.

Satellite Service Connectivity Competition: Two of the world’s wealthiest entrepreneurs are both aiming to dominate in India’s satellite broadband market. Elon Musk’ sStarlink and Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio, are rival bidders in a market of over 751 million internet users in India   as they prepare to face off in India’s satellite broadband market.

The India’s government announced last week that satellite spectrum for broadband would be allocated administratively rather than through auction, instead of an auction model, preferred by Ambani, to acquire radio spectrum licences. Satellite internet subscribers in India are projected to reach two million by 2025, according to credit rating agency ICRA, a market Starlink has been keen to attract since 2021.

Market News

Markets: Indices in the US closed yesterday with the NASDAQ up by 0,11%, the S&P 500 -0,05% down and the Dow Jones closing -0,02% down. The Nikkei closed -0.08% down today at 38104, while the Hang Seng has lost steam this morning and is up by 0,1% this morning and is currently at 20498.

Currencies: The US Dollar is currently trading at 1.083 against the Euro, at 1,297 against the Pound, and at 150.95 against the Yen. The rand has strengthened marginally today, and is currently trading at R17.53 to the US dollar.

Commodities:

• Gold prices have continued upwards in trade today and is currently trading at $2,749
• Platinum prices are currently trading stronger at $1032, with Palladium trading at $1075 currently
• Brent crude is currently trading upwards at $75.59 with WTI also trading upwards at $71.29 currently.
• Cocoa prices have dropped once more today, by almost -3% and is currently trading at 5445 pounds,

(All prices quoted at 09H30 CAT)

Other News in Africa Today

Kenyan Deputy Debacle: Impeached Deputy President, Rigathi Gachagua, has turned to the courts to determine if the impeachment proceedings and outcome from last week were legal. This after the Kenyan Senate voted for the removal of Rigathi Gachagua last week, while he was hospitalised. In an application to the court, his lawyers have argued that the allegations presented against the deputy-president elect to remove him from office were unfounded and were not supported by any evidence. The high court, yesterday, issued a conservatory order stopping the move to replace Gachagua until October 24. This happened shortly before the newly appointed Deputy President, Kithure Kindiki, was sworn into office. A bench of three High Court judges is set to make judgement on the matter. This is the first ever impeachment of a Deputy President in Kenya’s history.

African Governance Grades Drop: The newly released edition of the Ibrahim Index of African Governance report, has found that despite positive progress in governance in 33 countries in Africa, overall governance was worse in 2023 in 21 countries, accounting for just under half of Africa’s population, when compared with 2014.

For several countries, there has been a deterioration in overall governance, according to the report released by Sudanese-British billionaire businessman Mo Ibrahim’s foundation. Ibrahim has commented that there is a huge arc of instability and conflicts and this deterioration, and security and safety of our people, is the biggest driver of deterioration. On the positive side, Health, education and business environment metrics had shown improvement continent-wide. The worst drops were found in perceptions of economic opportunities and of safety and security.

South African Government Owes State Owned Enterprises Billions: With a sluggish economy and billions in un-paid service fees, South African State Owned Enterprises are facing financial crises. The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) has expressed concern about the failure by Eskom to recoup the R85 billion owed to the power utility by various municipalities. This debt is estimated to reach R100bn by March 2025, and increase to a R128bn by 2026 should no payments be received. Community organisation, Afriforum, has also criticised the Government regarding R35 million owed to the state broadcasting company SABC, in outstanding TV licence fees. Regional Water facility providers are also busy collapsing due to non-payment of services by municipalities. As of June 2024, municipal debt to water boards stood at R22.36 billion, with an average increase of 151% between 2019 to 2024. There is increasing service failures across multiple fronts and risks of collapse is of great concern.