Brexit on a knife edge
May’s Brexit vote delay hits the pound and sows yet more confusion, not least for some JSE companies
"Please, oh pretty please, could we have some certainty." The same thing businesspeople from all over the world often say about SA, local businesspeople are now saying about Britain in the wake of the calamitous Brexit negotiations, dragging the pound all over the shop and causing more delays to pending business deals. Facing ignominious defeat, Prime Minister Theresa May delayed a crucial vote on the Brexit deal in a week described by UK political watchers as the most tumultuous in British politics in half a century. She will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte this week to try to agree on more concessions, even if they take the form of mere reassurances, from the EU to get the Brexit deal passed, which the EU itself insists it will not provide. Vestact fund manager Michael Treherne says SA business is at this stage really just looking for a "stick in the sand" — some point of certainty around which it can start strategising. In the context of s...
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