🇿🇦 Johannesburg Stock Exchange

Today Cloud Atlas Investing, a South Africa-based investment firm, listed the Africa Sovereign Bond Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), giving investors exposure to a portfolio of high-yielding, long-date debt issued by African governments.

Aspen (JSE:APN) is pleased to confirm that the first supplies to South Africa of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines, from the new API source located in Europe, will be released to Johnson & Johnson from its flagship Gqeberha-based manufacturing site later today. These vaccines will be further distributed throughout South Africa in line with the various distribution arrangements between Johnson & Johnson, the National Department of Health and other stakeholders. In addition, vaccines from these batches will be made available through the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team/African Union platform.

Standard Bank Group (“SBG”) is proposing to buy 100% of Liberty Holdings Limited (“Liberty”) and to integrate Liberty more closely into the greater group. This will, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals, lead to the de-listing of Liberty and Liberty becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of SBG. SBG currently owns 54% of Liberty’s issued ordinary shares.

Imperial (JSE:IPL) announced that it has entered into a transaction implementation agreement regarding a cash offer of ZAR66 per share from DP World to acquire all outstanding shares of Imperial, implying an estimated aggregate cash consideration of c. ZAR 12.7 billion. This offer represents a premium of 39.5% to the Imperial share price as at 7 July 2021 and a 34.2% premium to the 30-day volume weighted average price of Imperial.