DINNER PARTY INTEL: Fog lights needed at Porsche

1. The Porsche Caveat

The worst-kept secret in European industry is out: the Volkswagen group will list Porsche in a limited share offering that could value it at up to €85bn. The portents are not good, however. Supply chains are fragile, a recession is looming and Germany’s Dax has lost a fifth of its value since January. Also, rival Aston Martin’s share price has collapsed by 99% since it went public at the end of 2018.

2. Tiger in Bulls tank

Fierce forward Marco van Staden has returned to the Blue Bulls after a season with Leicester Tigers in English rugby’s premiership. Van Staden, who is the only player to have made it from university rugby to provincial and Springbok level in a single year, is famous for thunderous tackles that have on occasion KO’d opponents. He is known in the team as Eskom because he puts the lights out.

3. Pink jumbos thrive

Gabon has claimed success in halting the spiral to extinction of its rainforest elephants, a different species to the savanna elephant.  Over the past 10 years, according to Lee White, a British-born zoologist who is minister of the environment, the elephant population has increased by about a third to 95,000. The elephants have pinker tusks than plains elephants and their ivory is prized by poachers. The success in halting their decline is ascribed to armies of park rangers armed to the teeth.