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Monday, April 20, 2009.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Shannon O'Donnell.

Making headlines today:

State-owned freight logistics group Transnet has secured another 915-million-rand in funding as part of its five-year 80-billion-rand capital expenditure programme. Acting CEO Chris Wells said that the group was "well ahead" in its plans of raising the required capital for the new financial year.

On Friday, the group announced that it had finalised the financing facility with the Finnish Export Credit Agency, Finnvera, for the procurement of equipment for the ports of Durban, Ngqura and Cape Town.

The funding would be used to procure straddle carriers and rubber-tyred gantries for the Pier 1 container terminal in Durban, the newly upgraded container terminal in Cape Town and the Ngqura container terminal.

South African mobile-telecoms giant Vodacom won't list on the main board of the JSE on May 5 as previously envisaged.

On Friday, the company and Telkom, which was unbundling its stake in Vodacom, reported that there had been a delay in the fulfilment of certain conditions and that the listing could now only take place on May 18.

But, it was stressed that all outstanding conditions had either been fulfilled of waived.

Currently, Vodacom is owned 50% by Telkom and 50% by Vodafone, of the UK. But in line with a multilayered deal announced late last year, Vodacom and Telkom would part ways, with Telkom selling 15% of its stake to Vodafone for 22,5-billion-rand. This would increase the world's largest mobile telecoms provider's interest in the company to 65%.

Also making headlines:

The University of Cape Town probes the use of value management practices in South African manufacturing.
The Communication Workers Union seeks to prevent Telkom from unbundling its Vodacom stake.
The World Bank is willing to aid Zimbabwe's economic recovery.
And, paper and packaging group Mondi settles its second set of land claims.

That's a round up of news making headlines today. For more on these and other stories please visit engineeringnews.co.za.