A screeching U-turn in South Africa

Last week, the South African president, Jacob Zuma, fired his respected finance minister Nhlanhla Nene. But the market and media furore prompted a major U-turn.

773-rand

"This is a mess-up of epic proportions," economist Dawie Roodt told Fin24.com. "It is like we're living in Alice in Wonderland." Last week, the South African president, Jacob Zuma, fired his respected finance minister Nhlanhla Nene, sending the rand crashing to a record low against the dollar. Meanwhile, ratings agency Fitch downgraded South African government debt to one notch above "junk", sending bond yields to their highest levels since the global crisis six years ago. Early this week, however, the market and media furore prompted a major U-turn. The obscure backbencher who had followed Nene was in turn replaced by Pravin Gordhan, Nene's predecessor, who also has a solid reputation with investors.

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Andrew Van Sickle
Editor, MoneyWeek

Andrew is the editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He grew up in Vienna and studied at the University of St Andrews, where he gained a first-class MA in geography & international relations.

After graduating he began to contribute to the foreign page of The Week and soon afterwards joined MoneyWeek at its inception in October 2000. He helped Merryn Somerset Webb establish it as Britain’s best-selling financial magazine, contributing to every section of the publication and specialising in macroeconomics and stockmarkets, before going part-time.

His freelance projects have included a 2009 relaunch of The Pharma Letter, where he covered corporate news and political developments in the German pharmaceuticals market for two years, and a multiyear stint as deputy editor of the Barclays account at Redwood, a marketing agency.

Andrew has been editing MoneyWeek since 2018, and continues to specialise in investment and news in German-speaking countries owing to his fluent command of the language.