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Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. bought a stake in HP Inc. valued at more than US$4.2 billion. Shares of the laptop maker surged as much as 10%.

The South African department of communications and postal services is finalising plans to transition the Postbank into a full-service bank.

The Government Institutions Pension Fund (GIPF) says the proposed compulsory preservation of retirement benefits under the new Financial Institutions and Markets Act (FIMA) are still to be approved.

President Hage Geingob on Wednesday said the country’s much-awaited Sovereign Wealth Fund will be launched in May this year.

Ratings agency Moodys has downgraded Namibia's long-term issuer and senior unsecured ratings to B1 from Ba3 and moved the outlook from negative to stable.

The Central Procurement Board of Namibia (CPBN) says it has procured goods and services worth N$18.96 billion since its inception in 2017 on behalf of public entities.

Namibia’s trade increased by 50% to N$15.3 billion in February this year compared to N$10.2 billion recorded in February 2021, latest official figures show.

Almost all of South Africa’s super-wealthy individuals have seen their fortunes grow over the last 12 months, with two local billionaires now ranked among the richest 250 people in the world.

Forbes has published its annual Billionaires List for 2022, tracking the wealth of the world’s richest people over the last year, including five from South Africa.

In the 2022 ranking, luxury goods tycoon Johann Rupert ranks as the richest man in South Africa with an estimated net worth of US$8.9 billion, up 25% from US$7.1 billion in 2021.

Rupert moves ahead of mining magnate Nicky Oppenheimer, whose fortune of US$8.7 billion tracks closely behind. Both Rupert and Oppenheimer now rank within the top 250, placing 230th and 241st, respectively.

South Africa’s other billionaires include familiar names on the list – mineral resources boss Patrice Motsepe saw his fortune grow by $400 million over the period, while Capitec founder Michiel le Roux has cemented his place on the ranking with his net worth growing to US$1.8 billion.

The only local billionaire to suffer a loss is media mogul Koos Bekker, whose wealth declined by 23% over the last year to US$2.3 billion from US$3 billion.

Like South Africa’s billionaires, the global elite were slaves to the global marketplace, hit by the Covid pandemic, sluggish markets, and more recently, the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

While many billionaires hit is big and saw their wealth boosted by these events, not all were as lucky. Counting 2,668 billionaires in 2022, the Forbes ranking was 87 people lighter than in 2021.

Collective billionaire wealth was also down, the group said – $400 billion less than in 2021 ($12.7 trillion).

“The most dramatic drops have occurred in Russia, where there are 34 fewer billionaires than last year following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and China, where a government crackdown on tech companies has led to 87 fewer Chinese billionaires on the list,” Forbes said.

“Still, [there are] more than 1,000 billionaires who are richer than they were a year ago. And 236 newcomers have become billionaires over the past year,” it said.

There were two notable changes among the top 10 this year – the first being a new global number one in Elon Musk, with an estimated net worth of $219 billion, up 45% from last year.

Musk supplants Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who actually saw his wealth decline over the last year.-bustech

 

The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) is actively experimenting with digital currency and distributed-ledger technology, but this cannot be done in isolation from the wider financial industry, says governor Lesetja Kganyago.

Kganyago was speaking on the findings of Project Khokha 2 on Wednesday (6 April) – a project which aims to explore the use of tokenised money, blockchains and digital currency in South Africa.

A distributed ledger is a digital record of transactions and contracts maintained in a decentralized form across different locations. The technology underpins cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and is being experimented with in large parts of the global financial system.

DLTs are currently most closely associated with blockchains – the system underpinning cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. However, blockchain technology is only one type of application of DLTs.

“We recognise that digital currency innovation cannot be explored in isolation. The SARB continues to draw on the insights emerging from various initiatives, including (but not limited to) our ongoing study into the feasibility, desirability and appropriateness of a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC), to enrich our understanding of digital currency implications.”

US federal reserve Chair Jerome Powell outlined four qualities a hypothetical digital currency in the US must have while adding that no final decision has been made on whether to proceed with creating one.

US central bankers are conducting research and experiments with digital currencies though Powell has stopped short of recommending a digital dollar, saying such a move would need more input from US lawmakers and stakeholders.-bustech

Sanlam is once again calling for young Namibians with innovative business ideas to apply for its 2022 Sanlam Bridge Programme.

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