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Bank controller Sasfin Holdings suffered losses to its headlines earnings per share from 334,43 cents to 271,41 cents and reduced its dividend by 18,84% to 80 cents per share after a tough six months to 31 December 2016, marked by credit losses and a write-down in its Efficient Group investment.

Indian mining billionaire Anil Agarwal (pictured) intends to purchase R31.5 billion of JSE-listed Anglo American shares in the market; a deal which would make him the company’s second-largest shareholder, second to the Public Investment Corporation (PIC).

The Middle East and North Africa (Mena) is set to experience a boom in fintech innovation over the next three years, propelled by a large unbanked population, VC inflows and the rapid emergence of a host of new startups, according to a state of the nation report prepared by local payment services outfit Payfort and entrepreneurial platform Wamda. According to the report, the number of startups in Mena’s FinTech ecosystem doubled from 46 to 105 over the three years 2013 to 2015 and the region could see a total of 250 FinTech startups launch by the year 2020.

Four powerful women – a mother, a grandmother, an accounting teacher and a career mentor – helped Refilwe Nkabinde to become BCX CFO at age 37. She spoke to CFO South Africa about her remarkable journey. “I feel equipped with all the tools I need to be a CFO.”

The Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) business confidence index, put together by the Bureau for Economic Research, rose to 40 points in the first quarter of 2017 – up from 38 in the last quarter of 2016.

Do you want to keep up to date with the latest developments in finance, but you are short of time? Don’t worry. CFO South Africa weekly collects 10 of the most important articles from international media for your convenience.

Excel solution provider Excel4apps has partnered with Finance Indaba 2017 and will make its second showing at the event at the Sandton Convention Centre in October.

Where talent management requires reviews to determine who belongs in what box and what to do with them after boxing them, crowdsourcing promises to bring out-of-the-box thinkers who work on a specific project as a team of free agents on demand.

JSE-listed technology services company EOH has posted very good results, with headline earnings per share rising by 22 percent, and revenue that improved by 21 percent to R7.2 billion in the six months to 31 January 2016. Moreover, operating profit margins improved despite tough economic conditions, with profit before tax up by 26 percent to R845 million.

Old Mutual Zimbabwe is taking proactive steps to invest in real assets that preserve value, the company says. This in the midst of uncertainty around the economy returning to the pre-dollarisation era.

Jacques Roux has announced he will be leaving Oakbay Resources, where he was CEO, after just one year in the job, effective 31 March. He will be replaced by George van der Merwe, who will stand as acting CEO from 1 April.

Investment holding group Remgro reported a 15% decline in intrinsic net asset value per share to R257.79 for the six months to December 2016 on the back of a 38,7% drop in the market value of its Mediclinic stake. The London-listed business represents its single biggest investment. The underperforming Middle East division was impacted by a number of operational and regulatory factors, including the new insurance co-payment requirements, doctor vacancies and delayed facility openings.

The 2016 CFO of the Year, Woolworths’ Reeza Isaacs, will be in attendance at the second instalment of the CFO Summit series in Cape Town on 22 March. He will be contributing to the dialogue and taking questions from the forum.

The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) has appointed Sara Bux (pictured) as its new Associate Director: Southern Africa. Bux, who joined CIMA on 7 March this year, has been charged with driving the long-term Southern Africa strategy, and will report to Badibanga Promesse, the Africa Regional Vice President.

“As a knowledge worker, thinking is at the essence of what you do. The key to success in knowledge work (adding value to information) is good thinking, good decisions and good attention,” said Marcel van den Berg from Think Productive. Marcel was giving a two-day productivity workshop, ‘Work Smarter not Harder’, on 14 and 15 March in Johannesburg.

IT projects are notorious for going over budget and have some of the highest failure rates across the industry spectrum. As a finance executive, it can be challenging to rein in eager technologists and projects that cross time and scope constraints. Let’s take a look at a few common reasons why IT projects prove to be so problematic.

Mobicred is a simple and convenient credit facility that allows you to safely shop online with participating retailers. It charges interest rates comparable to those of credit card providers and only levies monthly fees while the account is used. When a buyer – who first undergoes a simple online registration process with Mobicred – pays using the facility, the seller will immediately receive the full amount, without the risk of payment reversals.

“The 2016 financial year was exceptionally challenging, with South Africa’s economic growth essentially flat. Despite this, the company delivered solid results,” said Jose Dos Santos, Cell C CEO, speaking at a recent results presentation where it was announced that the mobile operator had posted its first profit of R540 million, for the year ending December 2016.

“More focus should be given to long-term career prospects, including equity partnerships and senior management and executive responsibility. Transformation is not about the de-racialisation of the overall profession; it is about financial inclusion, ownership and access to markets and opportunity,” says Bernard Agulhas (pictured), CEO of the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (IRBA). In Agulhas’s opinion, transformation must move beyond numbers and begin to truly empower black accountants and black-owned auditing firms. This includes providing equal opportunities to access the audit market, he says.

Financial inclusion, APIs, India, sentient fridges and blockchain technologies were all on the agenda as some of the continent’s leading FinTech visionaries applied their minds to the hot topic of the future of payments in the first FinTech Africa event of the year, held at Rand Merchant Bank’s Merchant Place campus in Sandton, Johannesburg, on Tuesday.

National Empowerment Fund (NEF) CFO Innocentia Pule has been nominated for the 2017 CFO Awards. The annual 'Oscars for South African CFOs', to be held on 11 May, recognise CFOs of listed companies, large corporations, state-owned entities and government institutions, and awards them for outstanding performance and leadership.

Murray & Roberts has appointed Daniel Grobler (pictured) as its new group FD, effective 1 April. Grobler takes over from outgoing FD Cobus Bester, who was in the position for six years. Bester is retiring and will step down on 31 March.

Global mobile research platform mSurvey, a global mobile-first research platform and Kenyan communications agency Safaricom have launched Consumer Wallet, a platform that quantifies offline consumer spending habits and trends.

“What makes me able to do this job is a strong understanding of the business, its operations and risk, as well as fundamentally accepting the need to grow the business,” says Frencel Gillion, CFO of Kagiso Tiso Holdings (KTH). “I think a CFO should have a strong grasp of the numbers but also be able to intuit what is happening within the business and be able to communicate this to the stakeholders through the financials. It’s not just about regurgitating numbers.”

Nazir Alli (pictured), former CEO of the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral), though perhaps best known for his previous role as the champion of the e-tolling system, has been announced as the new Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) chairman, taking over from Popo Molefe. This follows Transport Minister Dipuo Peters’ announcement last week of the dissolving of the rail agency's board.

Do you want to keep up to date with the latest developments in finance, but you are short of time? Don’t worry. CFO South Africa weekly collects 10 of the most important articles from international media for your convenience.

FX trading platform 360T has partnered with Finance Indaba 2017 and will make its debut at the event at the Sandton Convention Centre in October.

Crowdsourcing promises to make scarce and critical skills available cost effectively, perhaps close to 90 percent cheaper, and disruptively. Yet most companies currently rely on talent management – a human resource function that has been around for over half a century but whose tools and techniques has changed little during its existence – to identify, attract, develop and keep talented people who have these sought after scarce and critical skills. The question is: will crowdsourcing make talent management obsolete?

Shell, headquartered in The Hague, has said that all of its oil-sands interests, with the exception of a 10% stake in the Athabasca mining project in Alberta, will be sold to Canadian Natural Resources. The Anglo-Dutch producer is currently two-thirds of the way through a $30 billion divestment programme to reduce debt.

Security investment is a high priority for banks and financial institutions. Suffering from attacks on both their own infrastructure and on their customers, retail banks spend three times as much on IT security as comparably sized non-financial institutions.

KPMG International has appointed 49-year-old William (Bill) Thomas as chairman. Thomas will head up the KPMG global network of professional services firms for a four-year term, effective 1 October 2017. He takes over from outgoing chairman, John Veihmeyer.

Some of South Africa's foremost HR executives shared experiences, ideas and knowledge during the launch event of CHRO South Africa, the organisation that helps CHROs boost their network, knowledge and careers. Supported by the HR management software specialists from Workday, CHRO SA will launch its website and magazine in May. There are also four more high-level events scheduled for HR executives this year.

Aided by a formidable display from its vehicle finance division, financial services behemoth and South Africa’s biggest lender in terms of value, FirstRand reported a 14% rise in half-year profit on Thursday.

FinTech startup Mama Money has announced the expansion of its money transfer service into Nigeria, Ghana and Tanzania.

Great news for CFOs that want to boost their knowledge, network and career in 2017: professional services firm Deloitte will be the principal partner at the 2017 CFO Awards and will also be throwing its weight behind a number of learning sessions during CFO Summits for both the private as the public sector. Their experts and specialists will also be on hand to provide insight and challenge assumptions through publications in CFO Magazine and on this website.

Leading agricultural services and food processing company AFGRI has announced the potential acquisition of the National Bank of Greece Group’s stake in the South African Bank of Athens.

Nomakuze Mguqulwa-Nyembo, group HR director at Servest South Africa, is passionate about issues concerning women in leadership, especially with regard to creating a culture that allows women rise to senior positions within their organisations, and stay there, without having to emulate the leadership styles or characteristics of their male counterparts. In fact, the natural traits of women, such as their propensity to empathise and nurture, gives them an upper hand in being able to grow people, motivate them and, therefore get the best out of employees.

Sun International’s group director of Human Resources Verna Robson is a lawyer by training, who spent much of career practicing labour law. She believes it has been an advantage to have a career where she has worked closely with HR but not necessarily within it, because that has allowed her to think about her role from a very different perspective.

Before coming to Openserve to become the managing executive of HR, Kgomotso Molobye (pictured on the right) worked predominantly in the mining and oil & gas industries, having been at AngloGold Ashanti and within the mining division at Sasol. Her current role appealed to her because of the opportunity to create a HR legacy in what was a new and free-standing entity within Telkom. Among other things, Openserve builds the infrastructure required to deliver quality broadband and fibre services, and has been key to the Telkom journey of growth and connecting South Africans by delivering access to broadband and connectivity services to service providers.

Despite its age and the host of other options now available, the venerable Microsoft Excel spreadsheet remains the first port of call for many accounting professionals. Sadly, qualifying as a chartered accountant doesn’t mean that you are automatically an Excel super-user. Use these tips to enhance your productivity and streamline your spreadsheets.

Cubebucks is a virtual currency developed on blockchain technology that fixes the value of the qb digital currency to value in your local market against the price fix of gold on the London Metal Exchange against the dollar. The FinTech firm seeks to balance accounts in a combination of bank currencies, Bitcoin and gold reserves, that will secure the exchange ability of Cubebucks for Bitcoin or Vanilla currency value.

Mfundiso Johnson Ntabankulu (also known as JJ) Njeke, Thabo Vincent Mokgatlha, Prof Deon Rossouw and Theo Vorster have been appointed as independent, non-executive directors to the 4AX board, effective immediately. The appointees will play an active role in offering perspective and guidance on market and business related aspects, and review and assist in formalising the growing scope of the exchange’s market strategy.

South Africa’s economy continues to be stifled by weak growth on one side and the need for fiscal consolidation on the other. So says Deloitte in its recently published Global Economic Outlook Q1, 2017, which features a section on the South African economy titled ‘South Africa: In a tight spot’.

Like the advent of the personal computer and the world wide web before it, cloud computing – Internet-based computing that provides shared computer processing resources and data to computers and other devices on demand – holds the power to have far-reaching effects on companies and employee productivity. In a world in which disruption seems to be a constant and change occurs at breakneck pace, can organisations ignore the business benefits of the cloud, which include increased productivity, IT flexibility, and performance improvement?

Transnet CFO Garry Pita has been nominated for the 2017 CFO Awards. The annual 'Oscars for South African CFOs', to be held on 11 May, recognise CFOs of listed companies, large corporations, state-owned entities and government institutions, and awards them for outstanding performance and leadership.

Paratus Telecom, the largest privately owned pan-African telecoms operator, and which has a solid track record in the ICT sector, has appointed Stefan de Bruin as CFO for the Group.

Anneke Andrews, the Director of Human Capital at Deloitte, is a chartered accountant and was already some way into her auditing career when she made her the transition to talent acquisition. Her move from auditing was initiated from her involvement in a management solutions division, which, essentially, sought to assist clients with whatever business problem they might be facing.

Three billion people around the world are underserved by the financial sector, with limited or no access to quality savings, credit, insurance, and payments.

“Education is more important than anything else and will take us to the next level. I believe that helping to educate the masses in our country is a good and very necessary thing,” says Strato IT Group’s financial director, Mervyn Coopen. “Because education is often a key differentiator between you and success. I place emphasis on that and carry that message everywhere.”

A solar energy fund, the Foresight Solar Fund, managed by UK-based renewable energy investment firm, Foresight Group, is due to list on the JSE in early April. Some 250 million shares will be a private placement to institutions, with a minimum investment of R1 million.

Do you want to keep up to date with the latest developments in finance, but you are short of time? Don’t worry. CFO South Africa weekly collects 10 of the most important articles from international media for your convenience.

Government needs to show stronger support for voluntary measures which improve corporate governance rather than impose a legislative mandate, according to the ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), a partner of the Finance Indaba 2017.

In November 2016, Christiaan Engelbrecht joined Ster-Kinekor as CFO, a highlight in a finance career that started at Deloitte and Vodacom. He keeps a monthly diary for CFO.co.za to share his trials, tribulations and triumphs. This is part 2: time management.

Trend Micro Incorporated has released its annual security roundup report, which, like the Kaspersky report, shows that last year was quite the year for online extortion.

4 Africa Exchange (4AX) hosted the Financial Services Board (FSB) for the Regulator’s pre-launch onsite visit on 28 February, bringing the exchange yet another step closer to going live and concluding its first listing.

Mohammed Akoojee (pictured) has taken over from award-winning outgoing CFO Osman Arbee, as Group CFO of Imperial, effective 1 March. We spoke to Mohammed about his plans ahead.

Unlike most human resource practitioners who unexpectedly stumble into their careers, Vodacom's Chief Human Resources Officer Matimba Mbungela has had his heart set on HR since the beginning of his working life. As soon as he graduated with a Bachelor of Administration degree in 1990, he began his HR career at the department of Department of Agriculture & Forestry. From then on he moved to Mondi, Unilever, BMW SA and, in 2004 he joined Vodacom as the Group Executive for Talent, Learning and Development.

Liesl McKay-Bebb heads up RMB's The Foundery, which was launched to create a space for innovation & disruption in the Fintech space and is the host of CFO SA's Future of Payments event on 14 March. We spoke to her about her work and how she sees the local FinTech space.

Accountants don’t generally get to bask in the limelight and it is also rare for them to make headlines of any kind. You certainly wouldn’t accept an accountant to steal thunder at an event of the magnitude of the Oscars, but PwC partner Brian Cullinan’s monumental gaffe at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre on Sunday night did just that and thrust the venerable London-based accounting firm into public scrutiny.

MTN Group, Africa’s biggest mobile phone operator, has announced a R1.4 billion ($108 million) annual loss, the first for the company in 20 years. MTN said its headline loss came in at 77 cents per share, in the year to end December, compared with headline earnings of R13.6 billion (746 cents per share) the previous year.

The first outing of the CFO Summit series at Summer Place in Sandton, Johannesburg, in February was a phenomenal success, with attendees enjoying the insights of cybersecurity expert Sean Howell and McDonald’s South Africa CFO Zafar Mahomed’s thoughts on deal-making.

I Know First brings science and math to the financial world by providing daily investment forecasts based on an advanced self-learning algorithm. Developed by CTO and PhD-holder Lipa Roitman, the algorithm utilises artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques through which I Know First is able to analyse, model and predict the stock market.

Tyrone Soondarjee, Sasfin Group FD, has decided to retire this year. He will resign as group FD and retire from the board and other relevant Sasfin subsidiary boards effective 30 June this year. This after some ten years of service to the company.

Leading black-owned assurance and advisory services firm Nkonki has confirmed that it achieved a national pass rate of 92% for its candidates writing the second part of the Assessment Professional Competence (APC) exam, with its Sunninghill office achieving a pass rate of 100%. Both are considerably higher than the average national pass rate of 89% supplied by SAICA, according to whom 2,529 aspiring CAs sat for the APC in November 2016, of which 89% (2,247) passed. The firm attributes this success to the robust support it offers its trainees.

Nedbank announced that it had booked a $293 million write-down on the value of its stake in sub-Saharan lender Ecobank in a 2016 results presentation in Sandton on Tuesday. The bank also registered its slowest growth in annual profit in seven years.

Sasfin CFO Lushen Pather has been nominated for the 2017 CFO Awards. The annual 'Oscars for South African CFOs', to be held on 11 May, recognise CFOs of listed companies, large corporations, state-owned entities and government institutions, and awards them for outstanding performance and leadership.

Tesla CFO Jason Wheeler has announced that he is leaving the electric vehicle manufacturer, a company started by South African-born entrepreneur Elon Musk. Wheeler will be replaced by Tesla’s former CFO, Deepak Ahuja (pictured).

Mauritius-based payment solutions provider Inter Payments Tech will be one of the FinTechs pitching at the FinTech Africa Future of Payments event in Sandton, Johannesburg, on 14 March. Topics of discussion relevant to the exciting and expanding space on the evening will include the the death of credit cards and systems enabling digital currencies. We spoke to founder and CEO Mark O’ Sullivan to find out more about the company’s activities and involvement in the event.

As CFO for the National Homebuilders Registration Council (NHBRC), Shafeeq Abrahams has to juggle a lot of balls, and appease various stakeholders. Complicating matters, he says, is the fact that the entity has a public sector mandate: “The public sector mandate is about spending a budget against stated objectives. I think the psychology around budget allocation and spending is quite different where you’re a self-generating revenue entity and have to manage your sustainability and profits. And therefore, what you need to deliver has to happen in the confines of financial sustainability and efficiency. Being able to speak to these two sets of terminologies is a challenge because some of your stakeholders say, ‘You’ve got a budget, spend it’. But on the other end you have to look at operating profits, costs, operating effectiveness, and sustainability in the long run. In my role, I’ve had to shift thinking around these concepts.”

Kevin Johnson (pictured), who was nominated for a CFO Award in 2014, is the new Vice President of Colfax Corporation. Kevin took on the role earlier this year, leaving Marinella Vigouroux in charge of finance at Howden Africa.

Do you want to keep up to date with the latest developments in finance, but you are short of time? Don’t worry. CFO South Africa weekly collects 10 of the most important articles from international media for your convenience.

The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants' (ACCA) innovative online learning platform was last night awarded Study Resource of the Year by PQ Magazine at a ceremony held in London. The ACCA is a partner of Finance Indaba Africa 2017.

A well-drilled team, acting in disciplined harmony and each performing their individual tasks within the greater strategy, will outperform any grouping of individuals. Here are three crucial factors to integrate acquired teams successfully.

Last year, a huge amount of malicious spam was recorded. Of this, some 20% distributed ransomware Trojans – nasty little viruses which infect your computer and essentially hold it hostage until you pay a “ransom” to have everything released. According to Kaspersky, the most popular were mass spam mailings sent out to infect user computers using misleading headlines leveraging off popular global events, such as the Olympics, terrorism and lottery notifications.

The Southern African Movable Asset Register (SAMAR) has announced that manufacturers, importers, builders, banks, insurers and the general public will now be able to control title and ownership of all moveable assets.

The CFO Awards 2017 interview process is well underway, with close to half the nominees already having shared their views on a range of questions pertaining to strategy, compliance, leadership, transformation and governance, with the CFO editorial team and members of the judging panel. Thomson Reuters MD for Africa, Sneha Shah, JSE CFO Aarti Takordeen, new Discovery CFO, Deon Viljoen, and Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu, SA's first black CA, are among those on the judging panel.

Accountants often don’t get the credit they deserve within their organisations and it is only when things go wrong that they become the focus of attention. Like a good interviewer or referee, they tend to fade into the background when things are running smoothly, but there is hell to pay when an accounting error comes to light. Here are four of the biggest accounting blunders.

Accelerator Sw7, in partnership with the law firm Webber Wentzel, is set to launch its FinTech Innovation Africa roadshow in Cape Town and Johannesburg next week. FinTech specialists will be making presentations at various events at the Webber Wentzel offices in Cape Town and the SW7 workplace in Rivonia, Johannesburg.

Lekoil, a West Africa-focussed oil and gas explorer, has appointed Bruce Burrows as CFO, effective 27 February.

“Successful dealmaking is about people. Don’t rely on spreadsheets – get out there and understand the personal dynamics. I think 80 percent of it is about process flow, stakeholder management and people,” said McDonald’s SA CFO Zafar Mahomed in a CFO masterclass entitled Survival of the dealmakers.The insightful discussion formed part of the first instalment of the CFO Summit series and was hosted by CFO SA MD Graham Fehrsen at the opulent Summer Place in Sandton, Johannesburg, on Tuesday.

Venture capitalist, entrepreneur and public speaker extraordinaire Vusi Thembekwayo has earned plaudits (including from the likes of Nelson Mandela) and enthralled audiences all over the world with his lessons from the public speaking pulpit, which began when he was a teenager. He did not disappoint when opening Finance Indaba 2016 and earned himself a legion of new fans in the process.

ZAR X debuted on Monday this week, settling its first trade, a buy order for 100 shares in agricultural group Senwes at R10.50 a share, in just under ten seconds. This included it being matched, settled and cleared, said company CEO, Etienne Nel (pictured).

“If traditional information security is about building a broad defence against attack, cybersecurity is really an attacker-centric approach. It's the knowledge of your attacker that drives your cyberinitiatives,” said Sean Howell (pictured), MD of Redshift Cyber Security, during this morning’s CFO masterclass on The Art of Breaking In, presented as part of the CFO Summit 2017. Howell, a professional hacker, provided welcome, albeit unsettling, insight and encouraged CFOs to start thinking like attackers in order to best protect themselves and their organisations. All businesses are at risk because all businesses possess information that it vital to their operations and thus vulnerable to exploitation from hackers, he added.

Global mining behemoth Anglo American announced that it has slashed its net debt by 34% during 2016, exceeding expectations amid an uptick in metals prices in an interim results presentation in London on Tuesday.

CFO of Oceana Group Imraan Soomra has been nominated for the 2017 CFO Awards. Soomra won the Transformation & Empowerment Award at the CFO Awards 2015. The annual 'Oscars for South African CFOs', to be held on 11 May, recognise CFOs of listed companies, large corporations, state-owned entities and government institutions, and awards them for outstanding performance and leadership.

Candice Watson, Southern Africa Area Head of Talent at British American Tobacco (BAT), has garnered a lot of experience as an executive-level human resources professional in a short space of time. Since September 2014, she has been the HR partner at Lenovo, HR director for Sub-Saharan Africa at Pernod Ricard and now at BAT, where she has been for three months.

Dutch development bank FMO and banking co-operative Rabobank, together with Norfund, a Norwegian development finance institution, have joined financial forces in launching a new investment firm, Arise.

Nigeria’s retail banking and payments sectors will be most disrupted by FinTech solutions, according to the PwC Nigeria FinTech Survey 2017.

Narriman Taliep, CFO at Cape Town’s bustling V&A Waterfront, believes that modern CFOs need to embrace and get on top of technology: “For me, this is the future. It's a necessity, not a luxury. So, the question is, which aspects of the technology do you take on now, and how do you manage it?”

Steinhoff International and Shoprite Holdings have terminated their merger negotiations. This follows much criticism levelled at the deal by various parties, as well as Shoprite minority shareholders arguing that the transaction was not in their best interests. Under the proposed deal, Steinhoff would have sold its African assets to Shoprite in exchange for a controlling stake in the latter.

Do you want to keep up to date with the latest developments in finance, but you are short of time? Don’t worry. CFO South Africa weekly collects 10 of the most important articles from international media for your convenience.

Nova Human Capital Solutions is a company that offers turnkey HR solutions to companies of all shapes and sizes. From simply providing payroll services to doing a total overhaul of a business’s HR function, they do it all. Last week, CFO Enterprise CEO Melle Eijckelhoff and Didi Sehume of CHRO South Africa met with director Debbie Victor and MD Scott Barrett from NOVA in the build-up to the executive HR round table to be hosted by Vodacom HR director Matimba Mbungela on 9 March.

Against a background of what Sir Peter Gershon describes as “arguably one of the most turbulent times we have faced for years”, board members need to constantly review their approach to, and understanding of, risk, according to a new study from a group of industry and professional services organisations.

Kumba Iron Ore, a business unit of Anglo American won the EY 2016 Excellence in Integrated Reporting Awards. In this exclusive guest article for CFO South Africa, Nadia Schoeman, who has headed up the integrated reporting team since 2015, explains how Kumba’s report went from good to great.

US tech giant IBM is gearing up its digital skills training programme as it moves to train some 25 million Africans for free over the next five years, in a bid to grow the continent’s workforce.

JSE-listed Mondi Group has acquired 100% of the outstanding share capital of Excelsior Technologies (a vertically integrated producer of innovative flexible packaging solutions) from funds managed by Endless LLP and certain other minority shareholders, for a total consideration of £33 million, on a debt and cash- free basis.

Mohamed Dabbour has been promoted from chief financial officer to chief executive officer of telecom’s company Millicom’s African operations, replacing Cynthia Gordon. Millicom operates in Africa and Latin America under the Tigo brand name.

South African-based mobile payment providers FinTechs Zoona and Wealth Migrate have placed in KPMG and H2 Ventures’s FinTech 100 for 2016 list of the most influential startups in the space.

Accounting is a profession that is plagued by horrendous stereotypes and accountants are never seen to be the life of the party. Thankfully, they tend to have a sense of humour about it. We’ve put together a selection of accounting gags to brighten up your Friday and perhaps give you something better to use as an icebreaker when you’ve got to go up and present those numbers. Please let us put the “extroverted accountant looking at your shoes” line and the polite twittering that goes with it out to pasture.

The Twinsaver Group has announced its acquisition of Validus Medical, a leading manufacturer of hygienic disposable products. The sale, yet to be approved by the Competition Commission, signals a new chapter in Twinsaver’s journey as it moves to focus on establishing the business as a diversified FMCG company.

Professional services firm Deloitte went home with the Reporting Accountants awards by Deal Flow during the 16th annual DealMakers Gala Awards Banquet on 15 February 2017 at the Sandton Convention Centre. A jovial CFO South Africa MD Graham Fehrsen handed the prize to Deloitte's senior manager Aubrey Sebothoma, together with DealMakers director Marylou Greig. KPMG won the Reporting Accounts award by Deal Value, just like last year.

Award-winning National Arts Council (NAC) CFO Dumisani Dlamini took time off his hectic schedule to share his experiences as a CFO in the public sector yesterday at the first City to City Public Finance session of the year which was held at the Menlyn Boutique Hotel in Pretoria on 15 February 2017.

With cybersecurity legislation in the works and e-defence budgets being ramped up, it seems that South African companies finally becoming alert to the threat posed by hackers to their funds, intellectual property, client data and reputation. We spoke to Redshift Cyber Security's Sean Howell, who will be making a presentation during next week's CFO Summit, about developments in the space.

Quality positions are difficult to come by in the current market and there is a lot of competition for those that are available. While on a job hunt, it is important to prepare yourself for success in order to gain an advantage over other candidates. Every recruitment process is different but there are some critical elements that remain unchanged and which you need to be prepared for in order to be successful.

Sheila Motsepe, a trained clinical psychologist, has worked for a variety of companies, ranging from the Reserve Bank, where she was former governor Tito Mboweni’s director of human resources to her current role as HR director of German telecommunications company T-Systems.

The Spar Group has increased its sales by 16.9%, to R25.6 billion, up from R21.9 billion, for the 13-week trading quarter ending 31 December 2016. This is compared to the same period in 2015.

Financial and professional services firm JLL, which specialises in commercial real estate services and investment management, is on a drive to get to know CFOs in 2017. To do this they have partnered with CFO South Africa, and will be sponsoring the CFO Summit and the annual CFO Awards. They will also host two intimate dinners for top CFOs to discuss the challenges and opportunities that the sector presents. Company MD Craig Hean (pictured) shares his thoughts on the partnership and what value they intend to bring to the CFO community.

Blair Mackenzie, vice president of human resources Sub-Saharan Africa at Ericsson, is an entrepreneur at heart. Having worked in management consulting and sales, he started a recruitment business, Ethoz, which evolved into South African's first true Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) business.

Kumba Iron Ore announced that Financial Director and CFO Frikkie Kotzee, who has held the position for the past five years, has decided to step down, in a presentation of its 2016 yearly results on Tuesday. This news came amid a pleasing set of results delivered by new CEO Themba Mkhwanazi.

CFO of Cipla Sub-Saharan Africa Nishant Saxena has been nominated for the 2017 CFO Awards for his executive role in ensuring ongoing success at the pharmaceutical giant. The annual 'Oscars for South African CFOs', to be held on 11 May, recognise CFOs of listed companies, large corporations, state-owned entities and government institutions, and awards them for outstanding performance and leadership.

The Southern African Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (SAVCA) has appointed Tanya van Lill (pictured) as CEO, effective 1 March 2017. Van Lill succeeds Erika van der Merwe, who served SAVCA for over four years.

Valentine's Day 2017 marked the start of CHRO South Africa, a deeply connected organisation for HR directors to boost their network, knowledge and careers. Founding CEO Melle Eijckelhoff flew from the Netherlands to meet up with our energetic CHRO community manager Didi Sehume. They immediately kicked off a whirlwind tour of CHRO visits, ahead of the first intimate roundtable event for top HR directors on 9 March. Their first meeting was with Yvette Mujinga Malengela, HR director at African telecoms company Millicom.

CEO of Frankfurt-listed FinTech MyBucks Dave van Niekerk believes that both businesses and consumers do not fully recognise the the transformative power of technology.

Ending what has been one of the most spectacular blitz-careers of South African CFOs in recent memory, Cobus Grove, his wife Marilize, his son Christopher and his daughter Kaitlyn recently boarded an airplane and left for California. The winner of the Compliance & Governance Award at the 2015 CFO Awards will remain CEO of Pretoria-based company Ctrack, but he’ll be fulfilling his role from the San Diego headquarters of Inseego, formerly known as Novatel Wireless.

Thusang Mahlangu (pictured) has succeeded Delphine Traoré Maïdou as CEO of Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) Africa, effective 1 February 2017. Delphine, who was on the CFO Awards panel of judges from 2014 to 2016, will remain on the AGCS Africa Board as non-executive director.

Do you want to keep up to date with the latest developments in finance, but you are short of time? Don’t worry. CFO South Africa weekly collects 10 of the most important articles from international media for your convenience.

A survey by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) and Global Accounting Network has found that more than half (55%) of qualified accountant respondents are motivated by flexibility and a greater work-life balance when considering taking up a new job role, a rise of 18% from 2015.

AECI CFO Mark Kathan feels that more consultation with the IRBA is required.

Victoria Milazi has been appointed CFO of coal mine Nkomati Anthracite, effective January this year.

A public hearing on the IRBA’s measures to strengthen auditor independence and contribute to the efficiency of capital markets will be held in parliament on 15 February. The IRBA will present its annual report as well as the MAFR proposals to the Standing Committee on Finance (SCOF) during this time.