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Avon nominates CEO Mitarotonda to boardUS cosmetics maker Avon Products Inc has reached an agreement with Barington Capital to nominate the investor’s chief executive officer, James Mitarotonda, to its board in exchange for avoiding a proxy contest, a filing on Monday showed.Investors Shah Capital, Barington Capital Group and NuOrion Partners had pressured the cosmetics maker to explore strategic options, including a sale. The trio together hold a 3.4% stake in the company.Mitarotonda, who runs Barington Capital, will join Avon’s board, the company said in a regulatory filing.-Nampa/ReutersGSK buys Novartis stakeGlaxoSmithKline said on Tuesday it will buy Novartis’s 36.5% stake in their consumer healthcare joint venture for US$13 billion in cash, and will also begin a strategic review of some other businesses.GSK last week quit the race to buy Pfizer’s consumer healthcare business, endangering an auction the US drugmaker hoped would bring in as much as US$20 billion.Instead it will take full control of the Novartis venture formed in 2015 whose products include Sensodyne toothpaste, Panadol headache tablets, muscle gel Voltaren, and Nicotinell patches used by smokers who want to quit their habit.-Nampa/ReutersGerman investor upbeat on SA in bid for M&RGermany’s ATON GmbH plans to make a buyout offer for South African engineering and construction company Murray & Roberts (M&R), saying its move was a sign of its confidence in the South African economy. ATON, the investment vehicle of German investor Lutz Helmig, already owns a third of Murray & Roberts, which is attracting new orders after a decade-long slump.Under the deal announced by both companies on Monday, ATON plans a cash offer price of 15 rand per share - a 56% premium to Murray & Roberts closing price last Thursday.-Nampa/ReutersCapitec profit risesCapitec lagged estimates with an 18% rise in annual profit on Tuesday as South Africa’s fifth-largest lender pulls back from lucrative but risky unsecured loans in the face job losses and a weaker economy.Launched in 2001 as a micro-lending business, Capitec is positioning itself as a fully-fledged bank with no-frills account, savings and insurance and credit card products to cut its reliance on unsecured loans, which rely solely on a customer’s promise to pay it back.-Nampa/ReutersMassmart to open 20 stores in AfricaSouth African retailer Massmart is continuing its pan-African expansion with plans to open about 20 new stores outside its home market over the next three years, the company’s chairman said on Monday.Massmart, majority-owned by US retail giant Wal-Mart, operates nearly 400 stores, including 42 across 12 countries outside South Africa.“We’re very bullish about Africa, sub-Saharan Africa as a whole,” Kuseni Dlamini told Reuters on the sidelines of the African CEO Forum in Ivory Coast’s commercial capital Abidjan.-Nampa/Reuters

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Namibian Sun 2025-04-28

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Namibian Sun 2025-04-28

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