No fresh Vodacom bid for GT

(FIN24) - Vodacom, SA's biggest mobile network, operator has not tabled a fresh offer for a controlling stake in Ghana Telecoms (GT) but couldn't rule out adding a sweetener to its initial $500m (R3.5bn) bid.

"I've read reports from Ghana to that effect [of a higher offer]," said Dot Field, head of group communications at Vodacom. "But the fact is that we have not tabled a fresh offer for GT."

She added, however, that Ghana remained a market in which the group was "firmly" interested... as indicated in our annual report".

Initial bids for a 51% stake in GT were rejected by transactional advisors who argued that they were way below the government's asking price. Bidders included Portugal Telecom and France Telecoms.
 

 

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Gold Futures Rise to Record $900.10 on Interest-Rate Outlook

(Bloomberg) -- Gold futures rose to a record $900.10 an ounce on speculation the Federal Reserve will further cut U.S. interest rates, weakening the dollar and boosting the investment appeal of the precious metal. Silver also climbed.

Interest-rate futures show a 68 percent chance the Fed will lower borrowing costs 0.5 percentage point to 3.75 percent by Jan. 30 after Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke suggested cuts may be necessary to guard against an economic slowdown. Gold rose 31 percent last year when the Fed slashed rates 1 percentage point, sending the dollar 9.5 percent lower against the euro.

``If the Fed drops rates, a lower dollar will propel gold higher,'' said Leonard Kaplan, president of Prospector Asset Management in Chicago. ``Everything we buy is going to be more expensive. Any raw material will go through the roof. The smart people see inflation.''

Gold futures for February delivery rose $4.70, or 0.5 percent, to $898.30 an ounce at 11:55 a.m. on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The price reached the record at 10:40 a.m. The record level was confirmed by Nymex.

Silver futures for March delivery rose 2 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $16.295 an ounce. The price earlier reached $16.415, the highest since January 1981. The metal gained 15 percent last year.

HSBC Securities USA Inc. and Morgan Stanley predicted the Fed will reduce its benchmark rate by half a percentage point this month after Bernanke's comments, up from their previous forecast of a quarter point.

 

Read more at Bloomberg

Tony Blair to join JPMorgan: source

(Reuters) - Former British prime minister Tony Blair is expected on Thursday to join U.S. bank JPMorgan Chase & Co Inc as a senior adviser, according to a person familiar with the situation.

JPMorgan declined to comment. The Financial Times in London first reported the move on its Web site, saying it would be the first of a series positions Blair expects to take in the private sector.

Blair, a key ally of U.S. President George W. Bush, was replaced last year by Gordon Brown as prime minister amid growing discontent over Great Britain's policy in Iraq.

Details of Blair's duties with JPMorgan, the third largest U.S. bank, were not immediately available.

 

Read more at Reuters

Citigroup and Merrill in talks for foreign capital: report

(Reuters) - Citigroup Inc. (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Merrill Lynch & Co Inc. (MER.N: Quote, Profile, Research) are in discussions to receive more capital from investors, primarily foreign governments, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

Citigroup could get as much as $10 billion, likely all from foreign governments, while Merrill is expected to get $3 billion to $4 billion, much of it from a Middle Eastern government investment fund, the report said.

The report also said Citigroup's board is expected to discuss cutting the firm's dividend in half, a move that could save it more than $5 billion a year.

Representatives were not immediately available for comment at either bank.

U.S. banks have been wrestling with huge subprime mortgage losses, prompting some to seek cash from sovereign wealth funds

 

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Recession fears are growing

(Reuters) - Expectations for the weakest consumer spending performance in 17 years during 2008 kept the odds of a recession at nearly 40 percent, a survey of top forecasters showed on Thursday.

Panelists surveyed by the Blue Chip Economic Indicators newsletter have the odds of a recession in the next year at 38 percent, a little weaker than the 39 percent odds forecast a month ago.

But the most recent survey was taken ahead of December's grim unemployment report and the newsletter stated that growth forecasts would have been weaker if taken after release of that data.

"The January 4th news of the first decline in private sector nonfarm payrolls since July 2003 and whopping 0.3 of a percentage point jump in the unemployment rate during December no doubt caused some of our panelists to further trim their forecasts of economic growth this year and heightened speculation about the possibility of a recession," the newsletter stated.

"Whether or not the economy is already in a recession, about to enter one, or manages to muddle through without one, will only be known in the fullness of time," the newsletter wrote.

Based on the Jan 2-3 survey of economists -- taken a day ahead of the government's weak employment report that showed a huge uptick in the December unemployment rate and the weakest job growth in more than four years -- consumer spending this year is expected to grow at the weakest annual pace since 1991.

 

Read more at Reuters

S.Africa business confidence falls to 4-year low

(Reuters) - South African business confidence fell to a four-year low in December as companies were nervous about economic growth in 2008, the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI) said on Wednesday.

The Business Confidence Index fell to 94.8 points, its lowest level since November 2003, after declining to 95.8 in the previous month.

SACCI said in a statement a stable rand currency assisted exports and manufacturing output,

"The other sub-indices all turned negative...trade, residential construction and import volumes declined substantially while inflation moved higher while the stock market lacked direction."

Inflation climbed to a four-and-half year high of 7.9 percent year-on-year in November, raising expectations that the central bank would hike interest rates again on Jan 31, after raising them by 400 basis points since June 2006.

 

Read more at Reuters Africa

U.S. Will Escape Recession, Economists Say in Survey

(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. will skirt recession as consumer spending slows without collapsing, a survey of economists showed.

Economic growth will average 1.5 percent in the first six months of 2008, matching the fourth quarter's pace, according to the median estimate of 62 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News from Jan. 3 to Jan. 8. The rate of expansion would be the weakest since the last nine months of 2001.

Read more at Bloomberg