COMPANY NEWS IN BREIF
Shell CEO hints energy firms should pay more taxShell's departing chief executive indicated Tuesday that governments should "probably" tax energy firms more to help protect the poorest from rocketing electricity and gas bills and ease the cost-of-living crisis.
Ben van Beurden, who leaves Shell at the end of this year, was addressing the Energy Intelligence Forum industry gathering.
"You cannot have a market that behaves in such a way that it's going to damage a significant part of society. You simply cannot have that," he told delegates.
"One way or another, there needs to be government intervention that somehow results in protecting the poorest.
"And that probably means governments need to tax people in this room to pay for it — I think we just have to accept as a societal reality."
Energy bills have sky-rocketed in the wake of key gas producer Russia's invasion of Ukraine, sparking accusations from some quarters that the sector has reaped profits as a result of the war.
New British Prime Minister Liz Truss last month launched an energy price freeze that seeks to cushion the blow of runaway bills for households and businesses.
However the costly price freeze, contained also in the government's recent controversial mini-budget, has sparked turmoil over its impact on government debt. Van Beurden did not comment on the most appropriate way to tax the energy sector.
Truss, a former Shell employee, has already ruled out extending a windfall tax on energy companies' profits, which was unveiled by her predecessor Boris Johnson.-Fin24
France begins nationalisation of EDF
France began on Tuesday the process of taking full control of EDF, the highly indebted power utility that is to spearhead efforts to relaunch the country's nuclear industry.
The state, which currently owns 84 percent of EDF, filed a takeover offer with the financial markets regulators, the first step in removing EDF's shares from the market.
The French government in July signalled its intention to fully reabsorb EDF.
It hopes the move will help re-instil confidence in the company, which has a 60-billion-euro debt, as the government wants to launch construction of six next-generation nuclear reactors.
The state is offering 12 euros per share, and if it takes its holding to 90%, it can force other shareholders to sell. The entire operation will cost 9.7 billion euros.
After the 1970s energy shocks, France began a massive programme to build nuclear power plants, which eventually accounted for around three-quarters of electricity production.
But France's oldest reactors are reaching the end of their service lives and EDF's efforts to build a new generation of nuclear power plants has faced massive delays and cost overruns.-Fin24
Twitter Blue subscribers getting edit feature
Twitter on Monday said a feature to edit tweets is being rolled out to those subscribing to its Blue service in Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
The long-awaited editing tool test "went well," so it is being made more widely available, the San Francisco based tech firm said in a tweet, adding that it is "coming soon" to the United States.
"Edit Tweet is a feature that lets people make changes to their Tweet after it's been published," the company said on its blog. "Think of it as a short period of time to do things like fix typos, add missed tags, and more."
The tool will let users edit a tweet up to five times within 30 minutes of initially posting, Twitter said.
An icon looking like a slanted pen or pencil will indicate that a tweet has been edited, and a "version history" will be available to show what was changed, Twitter said.
Twitter Blue subscriptions are priced at US$5 monthly, according to the company's website.
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, who is locked in a lawsuit with Twitter over his effort to break his US$44 billion deal to buy the global social media site, had backed an edit button shortly before the company said in April it was studying the change.
Users of Twitter Blue - the subscription offering now available in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - "receive early access to features and help us test them before they come to Twitter," the company said.-Fin24
Elon Musk now wants to buy Twitter again
Elon Musk is proposing to buy Twitter for the original offer price of US$54.20 a share, potentially avoiding a courtroom fight over one of the most contentious acquisitions in recent history.
Musk made the proposal in a letter to Twitter, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information. Shares in Twitter climbed as much as 18% on the news, and trading is now halted. Representatives for Musk and for San Francisco-based Twitter didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Musk’s proposal to match the original deal terms means Twitter is facing a future under the leadership of a mercurial billionaire who has spent months publicly criticizing its management and questioning its value. It also means that his claims -- about how many of Twitter’s users are bots, for instance -- are not likely to be scrutinized in a courtroom.
Musk had been trying for months to back out of his contract to acquire Twitter, signed in April. Musk began showing signs of buyer’s remorse shortly after the deal was announced, alleging that Twitter had misled him about the size of its user base and the prevalence of automated accounts known as bots.
Musk formally quit the accord in July and Twitter sued him in Delaware Chancery Court to force him to go forward with the purchase. A trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 17. In the weeks-long run-up to that showdown, lawyers for both sides have fired cannonades of subpoenas at each other aimed at teasing out testimony and evidence. –Fin24
Anglo American and EDF forming a partnership
Anglo American and the French state-owned electricity utility Électricité de France (EDF) are forming a partnership that will start to build 600MW of wind and solar projects by next year.
The new venture, called Envusa Energy, will be jointly owned by Anglo and EDF subsidiary EDF Renewables. EDF Renewables is already a sizeable player in South Africa and will by next year build or operate 1GW in green energy projects in the country.
Envusa Energy wants to generate 3GW to 5GW of renewable energy by 2030 - equal to 13% of Eskom's capacity from coal-powered stations.
The first phase of Envusa Energy's renewables projects of 600MW is expected to be fully funded, and construction will start next year.
Envusa Energy will supply Anglo American with solar and wind energy generated on the company's sites and transmitted via the national grid.
Anglo and EDF will look for an "appropriate" black economic empowerment (BEE) partner in the coming months.
The partnership will help Anglo to achieve its 2040 target of carbon neutral operations, said Nolitha Fakude, chairperson of Anglo American.-Fin24
Absa urges government to keep promises
South Africa’s government must make good on its promises to deliver structural and economic reforms aimed at improving infrastructure and bolstering business conditions to revive capital expenditure, according to a report by Absa.
Gross domestic fixed investment in South Africa has "declined dramatically" to about 14% of gross domestic product at the end of the second quarter from its peak of 22.7% of GDP in the final three months of 2008, Absa economists Peter Worthington, Miyelani Maluleke and Sello Sekele, said. The data suggest investment spending is largely directed toward maintenance instead of growing productive capacity, according to the Johannesburg-based lender.
The decline is partly due to weak business sentiment that’s hamstrung private-sector investments, the lender said. Since 2018, spending by private firms has accounted for 71% of all capital expenditure, with government and state-owned company expenditure making up 18% and 11% respectively, Absa’s research shows.
A decrease in public spending on infrastructure, which fell by an annual average of 5.8% from 2015 through 2021, also contributed to the drag, it said. While the National Treasury, in February, outlined plans to boost spending on infrastructure, businesses are unlikely to follow until conditions improve, Absa said.
“Because government’s record on delivery of its reform promises is poor, we believe that business will largely wait” until it’s confident that a better operating environment is imminent before committing substantial capital for expansion, the authors said.-Fin24