Business brief | Sun City owner flags ‘exceptional year’; Tesla ditches auto lobby down under

In a fairly quiet day for corporate news in SA, Sun City owner Sun International flagged a profit rise in an “exceptional year” for its hotels and resorts. In international news, Tesla has quit an auto lobby group in Australia after accusing it of misleading consumers. 

Sun City owner Sun International flagged a between 82% and 92% rise in headline earnings per share for its year to end-December, saying its resorts and casinos had an “exceptional year”, while SunBet consistently achieved record income and is exceeding the ambitious growth targets set for this business. Adjusted headline earnings per share, however, are only expected to increase by between 4% and 9%, following adjustments including transaction costs relating to the proposed Peermont acquisition and the impact of the devaluation of the Nigerian Naira, which resulted in a non-cash net accounting adjustment. In December, Sun announced that it had reached a deal to acquire casino and hotel group Peermont, which values that company at about R7.3 billion. Sun, valued at about R10.3 billion on the JSE, gained just less than 1% on Thursday but has risen almost 17% in the past year.

OUTsurance said in a voluntary update on Thursday that it expects its normalised earnings per share, its preferred measure, to be in a range of a fall of 5% to a rise of 5% in its six months to end-December. The results, among other things, reflect the impact of higher natural perils claims, most prominently in Australia, a material increase in the cost of its SA employee share option scheme, and startup losses for OUTsurance Ireland. The life insurance business delivered a much-improved operating result, following the impact of stronger growth achieved in the funeral market and favourable yield movements compared to the comparative period, it added. OUTsurance closed marginally lower on Thursday, but has risen almost 15% in the past twelve months.