auction - The African Mirror

Mar

2024

Foreign investors return to Egyptian T-bill auction after devaluation, bankers say

FORIEGN investors have resumed purchases of Egyptian treasury bills after a long absence, three bankers said, as results posted by the central bank showed local currency one-year bills nearly three times oversubscribed at an auction on Thursday. The central bank results showed one-year T-bills worth 87.8 billion Egyptian pounds ($1.78 bln) had been sold at an average yield of 32.303%, a day after the bank raised interest rates by 6% and let the pound depreciate sharply against the dollar. Egypt received total bids worth 254.0 bln Egyptian pounds ($5.15 bln) for the one-year T-bill auction, the results showed. In a…

Jan

2024

By The African Mirror

Nelson Mandela’s personal items under the hammer in New York? Why it outraged some, and what’s at stake

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

AN identity document, a pair of reading glasses, a hearing aid and a pair of worn shoes. These are just some of Nelson Mandela’s personal items that were due to go on auction on 22 February 2024. A month before the auction was due, the New York-based Guernsey’s auction house put a notice on its website that it was suspending the sales. No explanation was given. DUANE JETHRO, Lecturer Department of African Studies and Linguistics, University of Cape Town The initial news of the auction caused outrage. South African government officials, commentators on South African social media, and even members…

Jun

2021

By The African Mirror

Mona Lisa up for auction? Not quite

WORLD

LUCIEN LIBERT RAYMOND Hekking spent decades trying to convince the world that the Mona Lisa painting he bought from a French antique shop in 1953 was the real thing and the one in the Louvre Museum was a fake. Now Christie's auction house has put the 'Hekking Mona Lisa' up for sale, hoping the story of his campaign to realise his dream will help compensate for the fact it is a copy. "It looks like the Mona Lisa but the quality of the execution is not Leonardo da Vinci," Christie's International Director of Old Master Painting Pierre Etienne said. "Unfortunately…

Feb

2021

By The African Mirror

South Africa’s telecoms regulator pushes back spectrum auction again

BUSINESS

SOUTH Africa's telecoms regulator has pushed back the announcement of the qualifying bidders for its long-awaited auction of new spectrum by a month to March 23, just a week before the sale had been due to be completed. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) said it was completing a contract with the external auctioneer who will oversee and manage the process, and the auction would now start on March 31 rather than finishing then. Allocation of high-demand spectrum is seen as key to expanding broadband services, especially 5G, in Africa's most industrialised economy, where the high cost of…