Major International Business Headlines Brief::: 12 March 2018

Mon Mar 12 11:23:05 CAT 2018

 <http://www.bulls.co.zw/> Bulls.co.zw        <mailto:bulls at bulls.co.zw>
Views & Comments        <http://www.bulls.co.zw/blog> Bullish Thoughts
<http://www.twitter.com/BullsBears2010> Twitter
<https://www.facebook.com/BullsBearsZimbabwe> Facebook
<http://www.linkedin.com/pub/bulls-n-bears-zimbabwe/57/577/72> LinkedIn
<mailto:info at bulls.co.zw?subject=Unsubscribe> Unsubscribe

Major International Business Headlines Brief::: 12 March 2018

 <http://www.mbca.co.zw/> 

*  South African central bank takes control of VBS Mutual Bank

*  South Africa's rand steady, stocks set to open higher

*  Nigeria increases excise duties on tobacco and alcohol

*  Kenya to sell 5-yr, 20-yr T-bonds worth 40 bln shillings in March - cbank

*  Mozambique's inflation slows to 2.93 percent y/y in February

*  Ivory Coast to reduce cocoa output over next two years

*  Nigeria central bank says injected $355.43 mln into currency market

*  US job growth surges in February

*  GKN faces new £8.1bn Melrose bid in takeover battle

*  London mayor Sadiq Khan warns big tech on hate speech

*  Elon Musk: SpaceX and Tesla alive 'by skin of their teeth'

*  We're not out of austerity tunnel yet - Chancellor Philip Hammond

*  Union urges Ford to make electric move

*  Restaurants warn chancellor over 'damaging closures'

 <mailto:info at bulls.co.zw> 

South African central bank takes control of VBS Mutual Bank

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African small lender VBS Mutual Bank has been
placed under curatorship because of liquidity issues, Reserve Bank Governor
Lesetja Kganyago told a televised news conference on Sunday.

Curatorship means the central bank can appoint an administrator or curator
to run the bank, which was thrust into the spotlight in 2016 when it
provided a 7.8 million rand ($660,000) loan to former president Jacob Zuma
to reimburse the state for upgrades to his personal home.

According to its 2016 annual report, its total assets were around 1 billion
rand ($85 million), and any failure would not pose a systemic risk to the
wider economy.

“VBS experienced increasing liquidity challenges over the last 18 months,”
Kganyago said.

He said the problems stemmed from it taking sizeable deposits from
municipalities that were short term and then making long-term loans from
this risky base.

Mutual banks in South Africa do not offer the full range of services that
commercial banks do and the governor said municipalities were not allowed to
make deposits with such entities in the first place.

He said the bank remained open for business.

($1 = 11.8078 rand)

 <mailto:info at bulls.co.zw> 

South Africa's rand steady, stocks set to open higher

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa’s rand steadied against the dollar
early on Monday, holding on to gains made in the previous session after
disappointing U.S. wage growth pared bets the Federal Reserve would
accelerate its pace of interest rate increases this year.

At 0645 GMT, the rand traded at 11.8175 per dollar, not far off its New York
close of 11.82000 on Friday.

The currency is expected to take cues from overseas trends in the absence of
domestic drivers.

Stocks were set to open higher at 0700 GMT, with the JSE securities
exchange’s Top-40 futures index up 0.77 percent.

In fixed income, the yield for the benchmark government bond due in 2026 was
down one basis point to 8.065 percent, reflecting firmer bond prices.

Nigeria increases excise duties on tobacco and alcohol

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has approved an
increase in excise duties on tobacco and alcoholic beverages, the finance
ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

The west African country, which has Africa’s biggest economy, fell into
recession in 2016 largely due to low oil prices. It emerged from recession
last year, mainly as a result of higher crude prices, and is trying to raise
non-oil revenues.

In addition to a 20 percent tax on tobacco, the government will add an extra
fixed tax per cigarette. A percentage tax on alcoholic beverages will be
replaced by taxes of fixed amounts based on volume.

The finance ministry said the changes will take effect from June 4 this
year.

The move would have “a dual benefit of raising the government’s fiscal
revenues and reducing the health hazards associated with tobacco-related
diseases and alcohol abuse,” it said in its statement.

The ministry said the new regime was in line with a directive from the
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) regional bloc on the
harmonisation of member-states’ legislation on excise duties.

Raising duties in Nigeria for alcohol could further hit consumer demand amid
fragile growth.

Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev), the world’s largest beer maker, expects its
new $250 million brewery being built in Sagamu, Nigeria, to start production
in the middle of this year, its head of Africa head has said.

Kenya to sell 5-yr, 20-yr T-bonds worth 40 bln shillings in March - cbank

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya will sell five-year and 20-year Treasury bonds
worth a total 40 billion shillings ($396 million) this month, the central
bank said on Monday.

The bank said in a statement it would receive bids for the two bonds until
March 20, and auction them a day later.

The five-year bond will have a market-determined coupon, while the 20-year
has a coupon of 13.200 percent.

($1 = 101.0000 Kenyan shillings)

Mozambique's inflation slows to 2.93 percent y/y in February

MAPUTO (Reuters) - Mozambique’s annual consumer price inflation slowed to
2.93 percent year-on-year in February from 3.84 percent in January, the
National Institute of Statistics said on Sunday.

Ivory Coast to reduce cocoa output over next two years

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Ivory Coast’s Coffee and Cocoa Council (CCC) will
suspend programmes for the 2018-19 season that boost cocoa output, it said
on Friday, aiming to reduce production in the face of global oversupply.

The marketing board plans to halt distribution of higher-grade seeds and
plants by chocolate makers, including Mars and Nestle, that develop hybrid
species that they pass on to farmers to increase yields.

Those programmes helped to increase output in the world’s top grower to
record highs last year but added to a supply glut that has depressed prices
worldwide.

“Given the increase in global cocoa supply and falling prices since 2016/17,
the CCC has decided to carry out a census of the coffee and cocoa orchards,”
the CCC said in a statement. It did not say when the census would begin.

    “Pending the finalisation of this census, we inform you of our decision
to temporarily suspend any distribution of improved plant material, seeds,
cuttings, etc, from the 18/19 season.”

Output in Ivory Coast has risen from 1.6 million tonnes 10 years ago to 2
million tonnes in the 2016-17 season because of higher yields, but global
demand has failed to meet supply. The CCC expects production for the 2017-18
season to slip to 1.9 million tonnes, partly because of bad weather.

High-level sources at the CCC said the organisation wants to try to reduce
output to between 1.7 million tonnes and 1.8 million tonnes over the next
two years, affecting exporters and chocolate makers that also include
Ferrero, Cargill, Olam, Cemoi and Cocoa Barry.

“Our goal is to control our production because these last 10 years, it is
these programmes initiated by chocolatiers ... that increased our production
from 1.6 million to 2 million (tonnes),” a CCC source said.

Separately, the CCC has begun a three-year programme to uproot 300,000
hectares of cocoa infected by swollen shoot since January. The CCC source
said that 25,000 hectares have been cleared already, which will also help to
reduce growing capacity in the coming years.

Nigeria central bank says injected $355.43 mln into currency market

LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigeria’s central bank said on Friday it had injected
$355.43 million into the interbank foreign exchange market, as part of its
efforts to boost liquidity and alleviate dollar shortages.

The bank said in a statement the money was released to “meet requests in the
agricultural, airlines, petroleum products and raw materials and machinery
sectors”.

Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, fell into recession in 2016 largely
because of low crude oil prices. Lower oil revenues led to foreign currency
shortages, since crude sales are the country’s main source of dollars.

It emerged from recession in the second quarter of last year as crude prices
recovered and militant attacks against Niger Delta oil production facilities
ended. But it has maintained a system of multiple exchange rates in a bid to
reduce pressure on the local naira currency.

The International Monetary Fund, in a report published earlier this week,
reiterated its call for Nigeria to scrap its multiple exchange rates and
move to a unified rate as quickly as possible.

US job growth surges in February

Job creation in the US economy surged last month, but the annual rate of
wage growth slowed.

The economy created 313,000 jobs in February, official figures show, far in
excess of analysts' expectations.

However, the unemployment rate remained at 4.1%, while the annual earnings
growth rate slowed to 2.6% last month.

January's annual wage growth rate - which had triggered fears over
inflationary pressures - was also revised down from 2.9% to 2.8%.

The strong wage growth figure for January prompted sharp volatility on the
stock market, as investors worried the US Federal Reserve would quicken the
pace at which it increased interest rates.

'Firing on all cylinders'

Despite a lower-than-expected wage increase in February, many economists
said longer term trends still point to higher wages.

The US economy is in its ninth year of economic expansion, with an upswing
in global growth and tax cuts passed last year helping to boost growth.

Friday's report from the US Labor Department showed the biggest increase in
jobs since July 2016, sending major stock indexes higher.

The three major US stock indexes climbed almost 2% by the close of trading
and the Nasdaq closed at a record high.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 440 points, or 1.77%, to end at
25,335, the S&P 500 gained 47 points, or 1.74%, to 2,786 and the Nasdaq
ended up 132 points, or 1.79%, to 7,560.

"We have an economy that is firing on all cylinders and the job market is a
reflection of that," said Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Bank.

February's gains included an increase of 61,000 construction jobs - the
biggest rise since 2007. The manufacturing sector also added 31,000 jobs,
while retail employment rebounded from declines last year.

The number of people working or looking for work also jumped by more than
800,000 last month. That was the biggest monthly rise in the labour force in
more than two decades and boosted the labour force participation rate to
63%.

Despite the rise, the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%, where it has
hovered since October.

Those figures provided fodder for analysts who say wage growth could be
moderated by a large number of potential workers sitting on the sidelines.

"The huge gain in payrolls belies the notion that the [labour] market has
truly reached full employment," said Sophia Koropeckyj of Moody's Analytics.

Increasing participation by men of prime working age - between 25 and 54
years - has helped drive the labour force participation rate higher in
recent months, reflecting a resurgence in sectors such as manufacturing.

But Ms Koropeckyj said she does not expect the labour force to continue
growing at last month's pace, pointing to challenges such as skill gaps and
opioid addiction.

Americans are also moving less, fuelling a geographic mismatch between jobs
and job seekers and hardening regional disparities.

"There's only so much of a boost you can get because a lot of people are
structurally unemployed," she said. "Certainly there is slack, but how much
of it will be practically absorbed is questionable."

Rate rise ahead?

Ms Koropeckyj said a tighter labour market makes slow acceleration in wage
growth "inevitable" this year.

The average hourly wage for private sector workers was $26.75 last month, up
68 cents from February 2017 and 4 cents from January.

Markets are expecting the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates at least
three times in 2018. But with the inflation rate lagging its target 2% rate,
it has been waiting for signs - like strong wage growth - of pricing
pressure.

Analysts said strong hiring in February all but guarantees the Fed will
raise rates at its meeting later this month, even if the figures were
boosted by mild weather. But the relatively weak wage growth did little to
resolve debates about whether policymakers will eventually move faster.--BBC

GKN faces new £8.1bn Melrose bid in takeover battle

Turnaround specialist Melrose has increased its offer for engineering giant
GKN from £7.4bn to £8.1bn.

It has also raised the amount GKN shareholders would own in Melrose
following the deal from 57% to 60%.

Melrose said all recent attempts to engage in "constructive discussions"
with GKN had been blocked.

GKN has fought hard against the offer. It has offered to give back £2.5bn to
shareholders and agreed to merge its car unit with US company Dana.

Melrose said its latest offer was "final" and "will not be increased under
any circumstances".

It is offering 467p a share, compared with Friday's closing share price of
435p.

Melrose called GKN's attempts to fend off the approach a "hasty fire sale of
GKN businesses before they have reached their potential".

Political issue

Also on Monday, GKN issued its latest defence against the Melrose approach.

However, this was based on Melrose's previous offer, which it said was
"opportunistic" and "fundamentally undervalues" GKN's prospects.

GKN has fought hard against the approach from Melrose, a firm that
specialises in buying up industrial companies it believes are undervalued
and restructuring them before selling them on.

The takeover approach has also raised fears among unions and MPs that GKN,
one of the UK's largest industrial firms, will be broken up and sold to
overseas owners.

The Pensions Regulator has warned that the Melrose takeover could affect the
company's ability to fund its pension scheme.

Last week, a cross-party group of MPs wrote to the Business Secretary, Greg
Clark, saying the Melrose takeover should be blocked.

GKN shareholders have until 29 March to decide whether or not to accept
Melrose's offer.

A brief history of GKN

Founded in 1759 as an ironworks in South Wales

Involved in aerospace, automotive, materials and manufacturing engineering

Operates in 30 countries with 59,000 employees

Employs 6,000 staff in the UK, mostly in aerospace and automotive technology

Ten UK sites, including Bristol, Cowes, Luton, Portsmouth, Birmingham and
Telford.

Chief executive Anne Stephens took over in January--BBC

London mayor Sadiq Khan warns big tech on hate speech

Stricter regulation, including large fines, is one option to force
technology companies to take the issue of hate speech more seriously, the
Mayor of London has said.

"We can't assume that tech companies will find the solutions by themselves,"
Sadiq Khan told the BBC.

He said companies have to be "chivvied and cajoled to take action".

On Monday, he will share examples of abuse he has personally received.

The messages will form part of his keynote speech at the South by Southwest
(SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas.

He said the messages could deter people from entering politics or public
life.

"If someone like me is receiving these sorts of messages in a public
environment," he said. "Imagine how you feel as a young person, if you're
somebody who's putting your head above the parapet.

"You're going to think once, twice three times whether you want to do so."

'Heads in the sand'

The location of his speech is fitting - it was here where Twitter first
gained popularity back in 2007. But in that decade, little has changed in
the law.

"We have evolving economies, which means we should have evolving
regulations.

"For too long politicians and policy makers have allowed this revolution to
take place around us and we've had our heads in the sand."

In his speech he will reference rules put in place in Germany that allows
fines of up to 50 million euros if hate speech is not removed in a timely
fashion.

"Germany is an example of where the German government said 'Enough. Unless
you take down hate messages, unless you take down fake news, we will fine
you'.

He added: "I want to work with the tech companies, but you have to be
responsible."

Trump tweets

Mr Khan acknowledged that the rate of his abuse has been accelerated by
tweets from President Donald Trump that mentioned the Mayor specifically in
the wake of a London terror attack.

In November, Mr Trump retweeted posts from Britain First, a far-right group
that has now been banned from the platform.

"If you are the most powerful man in the western world, and you are
amplifying messages from far-right groups, Britain First, that has an impact
on many people. That group incites hatred.

"President Trump has lots of followers and some of them have shown interest
in me.

"I'm a reluctant participant in any 'verbal fisticuffs' between the
President of the USA and me.

"But I've got a responsibility as the Mayor of the most diverse city in the
world to speak up for my residents."

Stricter regulation

But in talking at this extremely pro-tech event on this topic, the Mayor
treads a fine line.

Raising the possibility of stricter regulation, even fines, risks London
gaining a reputation as being an anti-start-up city - a place where doing
business on the internet could be riskier financially than in other parts of
the the world.

"I want London to be the centre of disruptive technology, and businesses
thinking of starting up, scaling up or giant tech companies coming to
London," Mr Khan said.

"But, and there's a very important but, we as politicians and policy makers
have got to work with you to make sure it works for everyone.

"What I don't want is a situation where we end up where Germany's ended up
where because their citizens don't feel protected they're taking this sort
of action. Germany is an example of what happens if companies don't
self-regulate."

In a related attempt to clamp down on behaviour by some tech firms, Mr Khan
said recent suggestions to tax tech companies on revenue, rather than
profits, was a "really interesting debate that is finally happening".

But he said he believed it was cooperation between countries that would have
the most impact on how tech firms approached their tax affairs.

"What we want is joined-up-ness," he said.

"What we don't want is companies using an army of accountants to find the
loopholes."--BBC

Elon Musk: SpaceX and Tesla alive 'by skin of their teeth'

Elon Musk says his companies SpaceX and Tesla are both still alive only "by
the skin of their teeth".

The entrepreneur told an audience at the South by South West (SXSW)
conference that both companies almost went bankrupt in 2008.

"I gave both SpaceX and Tesla a probability of less than 10% likely to
succeed," he said during a Q&A session.

"At the beginning in 2002, I wouldn't even let my own friends invest as I
didn't want to lose their money."

Mr Musk said he made $180m (£130m) when PayPal was acquired by eBay in 2002,
and he initially put $90m into SpaceX and Tesla, but the costs kept
mounting.

He said 2008 was an incredibly difficult year - SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket
failed for the third time, and Tesla almost went bankrupt two days before
Christmas.

By this point, he only had about $40m left.

"I could put it all into one company, and the other company would definitely
die, or if I split it into both SpaceX and Tesla, then they both might die,"
he said.

"And when you put your energy into building something, it's your baby, so I
couldn't choose. I put the money into both, and thank goodness they both
came through."

Mr Musk also got divorced, and he said he had to borrow money from his
friends to pay his rent.

"SpaceX is alive by the skin of its teeth, and so is Tesla - if things had
just gone a little differently, both companies would be dead," he said.

Mr Musk said he had to be the chief engineer for the Falcon 1 because he
couldn't get any other suitable candidates to join the company, and he
didn't want to risk his venture on engineers he felt weren't of the right
standard.

And although he can now afford to hire as many talented engineers as he
would like, he still continues to spend 80-90% of his time working on
engineering and design at both SpaceX and Tesla, leaving other executives to
manage the business side of the companies.

However, he said that over time, he felt Tesla had caused him far "more
drama" than SpaceX.

He also said his tunnelling firm, the Boring Company, was started as a joke
because he thought the name was funny, and although he tweets about it a
lot, it actually only takes up about 2% of his time.

Opportunities on Mars

When asked why he decided to go into the space industry and electric cars,
he explained that he had been interested in both subjects when he was in
university.

He also said he didn't feel enough progress had been made in recent years on
space travel.

"I wondered why we weren't making progress with getting people on the moon,
and where are all the space hotels we were promised in 2001: A Space
Odyssey?" he said.

"The genesis of SpaceX was not to create a company, but how do we get Nasa's
budget to be bigger?"

Mr Musk remains convinced that life on Mars is both possible and necessary.

He fears another "dark age" should a third world war occur, and feels that
Mars will be integral to helping the human race survive and regenerate.

He also feels there are plentiful business opportunities there.

"They will start off building a rudimentary base... then this will open up a
world of new opportunities, because Mars will need pizza joints, great bars
- Mars Bars," he said.--BBC

We're not out of austerity tunnel yet - Chancellor Philip Hammond

Chancellor Philip Hammond has rejected calls by Labour and some
Conservatives to announce the end of austerity in his spring statement on
Tuesday.

He is expected to unveil the smallest budget deficit since 2002, thanks to
better than expected public finances.

But he told the BBC national debt was still too high, adding: "There is
light at the end of the tunnel... but we are still in the tunnel at the
moment."

Labour has urged him to end the "pain and misery" of public spending cuts.

Mr Hammond told the Andrew Marr Show it would be wrong to pour "every penny"
into additional public spending.

What not to expect from the spring statement

Why is there no Budget this March?

UK economic growth exceeds forecasts

He said it was "very important moment" to see debt starting to fall after
growing for 17 continuous years.

But he said: "We should be very careful looking at single sets of figures -
one quarter or two quarters - we need to look at what's happening
sustainably in the economy."

The day-to-day deficit has been eliminated, it emerged earlier this month,
two years later than former chancellor George Osborne had wanted when he set
out in 2010.

The UK is now running a surplus of £3.8bn in its current budget - the money
borrowed to fund day-to-day spending rather than long-term investment -
according to the Office for National Statistics.

"We have a debt of £1.8 trillion - 86.5% of our GDP," Mr Hammond said. "All
the international organisations recognise that is higher than the safe
level."

Debt 'horror'

Mr Hammond told the BBC that "we need to get our debt lower".

"I think most people in this country would be horrified to be reminded that
we have £65,000 worth of public debt for every household in this country,"
he said.

The chancellor is due to announce a half-yearly update of Britain's public
finance figures on Tuesday, but confirmed he would not be delivering any new
tax or spending measures.

"If there is the flexibility and the space to do something, then we will
decide in the autumn how we are going to use that," he said.

Economists expect the chancellor will announce borrowing is set to be around
£7bn lower in 2017-18 than had been predicted, when he unveils the latest
forecasts of the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Also appearing on Andrew Marr, John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, called
on the government to end its austerity programme.

He said recent economic figures were "not a matter for celebration" - and
said the chancellor "should be coming into the real world".

He said Mr Hammond had "shifted the deficit onto the shoulders of NHS
managers, headteachers and onto the shoulders of local government leaders.

"They're facing a financial crisis because of government cutbacks," he told
Marr.

Media captionJohn McDonnell says he won't appear on Russia Today

He called the government's plans for an NHS pay deal "miserly and
mean-spirited".

"Pay is at the moment just about matching inflation, that's all," he added.

Mr McDonnell has called on the government to use its spring statement to end
what Labour called an "immediate crisis" in public services.

But Mr Hammond vowed to "look at the numbers" in the autumn Budget.

He said: "Local authorities have done an incredible job in delivering
efficiencies," adding: "Of course they're under some pressures".--BBC

Union urges Ford to make electric move

The Unite union has urged Ford to convert its UK engine plants to making
electric cars and battery technology.

Currently Ford makes engines for the Ford Fiesta and Jaguar Land Rover
vehicles at Bridgend in South Wales and diesel engines in Dagenham in Essex.

Both plants faces uncertainty, as Jaguar plans to build its own engines and
demand for diesel cars has plunged.

Unite wants to secure the future of both plants by persuading Ford to switch
them to electric vehicles.

"These sites must be repurposed for new electric models or battery
technology," Unite said.

On Wednesday the union will present a document outlining a strategy for the
whole UK automotive industry, which it says supports 800,000 jobs.

Sales of diesel cars slump

Have diesels been getting a bad press?

It will ask the government to help the shift to electric vehicles by
supporting research and development, training and investment.

Bridgend concerns

Production of engines for Jaguar Land Rover at the Ford Engine plant in
Bridgend will end in September 2020.

Half of the workforce of 1,930 at Bridgend works on that engine.

At the moment Ford Bridgend makes half a million engines a year for Ford's
own models and a quarter of a million for JLR.

After 2020 the number of engines being made on the site will be just a
quarter of present production levels.

Diesel down

Meanwhile a cloud hangs over Dagenham as demand for cars with diesel engines
has fallen.

Figures from industry body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders
showed sales of new diesel cars fell 17.1% last year as higher taxes and
pollution fears hit demand.

A recent study by Aston University forecast a further 10% drop in sales this
year and estimated that diesel cars will account for less than a third of
the market by 2020.—BBC

Restaurants warn chancellor over 'damaging closures'

A group of restaurant bosses is warning the government it must act to avoid
"damaging closures and job losses".

In a letter to Chancellor Philip Hammond, they have asked for "root and
branch" reform of business rates.

The chief executive of Bills and the chairman of pub and restaurant chain
Mitchells and Butlers are among the 15 who signed the letter.

A string of chains including Jamie's Italian and Byron have closed outlets
recently amid financial difficulties.

Last week, pizza chain Prezzo became the latest to cut back, closing 94
outlets.

That amounted to about a third of its outlets and included all of its TexMex
chain Chimichanga.

Barbecoa, a smaller chain also owned by Jamie Oliver, went into
administration last month, while Italian chain Carluccio's has called in
accountants KPMG to advise on possible strategies to cut costs.

What’s eating the restaurant trade?

Jamie Oliver closes flagship restaurant

Six reasons behind the High Street crisis

In the letter to the chancellor ahead of his spring statement on the economy
on Tuesday, the business leaders described a "perfect storm" that has hit
their sector.

They blamed "soaring business rates, rising employment costs and
Brexit-fuelled inflation" for the difficult trading conditions.

"We need government action now to reduce the unnecessary costs of doing
business if we are to avoid damaging closures and job losses," the letter
said.

"The sector is at a tipping point and needs focused attention now."

According to research published last week, one in three of the UK's top 100
restaurant groups are not making a profit.

Consumer spending power - squeezed by low wage growth and higher inflation -
means consumers are reining in discretionary leisure spending in general.

Some are replacing it with home delivered meals, or ready-meals like Marks
and Spencer's successful Dine In for Two for £10.

Some analysts also argue there has been too much expansion among chain
restaurants.

Speaking to the BBC last month, Roger Tejwani, from stockbrokers Finncap,
said: "There is too much capacity in the market with consumers having a
considerable amount of choice."--BBC

INVESTORS DIARY 2018

Company

Event

Venue

Date & Time

CFI

AGM

Farm & City Boardroom, 1st Floor, Farm & City Complex, 1 Wayne Street

12 Mar 2018 11am

 <mailto:info at bulls.co.zw> 

DISCLAIMER: This report has been prepared by Bulls ‘n Bears, a division of
Faith Capital (Pvt) Ltd for general information purposes only and does not
constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy or
subscribe for any securities. The information contained in this report has
been compiled from sources believed to be reliable, but no representation or
warranty is made or guarantee given as to its accuracy or completeness. All
opinions expressed and recommendations made are subject to change without
notice. Securities or financial instruments mentioned herein may not be
suitable for all investors. Securities of emerging and mid-size growth
companies typically involve a higher degree of risk and more volatility than
the securities of more established companies. Neither Faith Capital nor any
other member of Bulls ‘n Bears nor any other person, accepts any liability
whatsoever for any loss howsoever arising from any use of this report or its
contents or otherwise arising in connection therewith. Recipients of this
report shall be solely responsible for making their own independent
investigation into the business, financial condition and future prospects of
any companies referred to in this report. Other  Indices quoted herein are
for guideline purposes only and sourced from third parties.

(c) 2018 Web: <http:// www.bulls.co.zw >  www.bulls.co.zw Email:
<mailto:info at bulls.co.zw> info at bulls.co.zw Tel: +263 4 2927658 Cell: +263 77
344 1674

Invest Wisely!

Bulls n Bears 

Telephone:      <tel:%2B263%204%202927658> +263 4 2927658

Cellphone:      <tel:%2B263%2077%20344%201674> +263 77 344 1674

Alt. Email:       <mailto:info at bulls.co.zw> info at bulls.co.zw  

Website:
<http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bulls.co.zw&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AF
QjCNH8LYgdY55h-XKseuM8Kpr-JKdfhQ> www.bulls.co.zw 

Blog:
<http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bulls.co.zw%2Fblog&sa=D&sntz=1
&usg=AFQjCNFoIy6F9IXAiYnSoPSgWDYsr8Sqtw> www.bulls.co.zw/blog

Twitter:         @bullsbears2010

LinkedIn:       Bulls n Bears Zimbabwe

Facebook:
<http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FBullsBearsZimba
bwe&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGhb_A5rp4biV1dGHbgiAhUxQqBXA>
www.facebook.com/BullsBearsZimbabwe

Skype:         Bulls.Bears 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listmail.bulls.co.zw/pipermail/bulls/attachments/20180312/fd062b0f/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 3653 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listmail.bulls.co.zw/pipermail/bulls/attachments/20180312/fd062b0f/attachment-0006.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 15037 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listmail.bulls.co.zw/pipermail/bulls/attachments/20180312/fd062b0f/attachment-0007.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image003.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 29401 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listmail.bulls.co.zw/pipermail/bulls/attachments/20180312/fd062b0f/attachment-0008.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image004.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 29388 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listmail.bulls.co.zw/pipermail/bulls/attachments/20180312/fd062b0f/attachment-0009.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image005.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 29420 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listmail.bulls.co.zw/pipermail/bulls/attachments/20180312/fd062b0f/attachment-0010.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image006.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 4846 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listmail.bulls.co.zw/pipermail/bulls/attachments/20180312/fd062b0f/attachment-0011.jpg>