Mitchell Slape is a man on a mission - from Walmart. Five months after taking over as CEO of Massmart, he's making wholesale changes. Retail ones too. Four division will be rolled into two, cutting back on the number of distribution centres, IT systems and duplicated overheads the group has been operating on. He also plans to tackle the underperformance of the Game chain of stores, which relies too much on discounts. That's on top of the store closures and possible retrenchments announced earlier this month. While the group has forecast a sizeable loss for 2019, its shares perked up yesterday on news of the reorganisation.

Meanwhile, a restructuring at EOH is also bearing fruit as it reduces costs and trims its debt by selling non-core businesses. However, it says trading remains tough, with companies continuing to cut back on their IT spend due to the weak economy.

More on those stories in your final newsletter of the week, along with good news from Sasol as another unit at its Lake Charles Chemicals Project kicks into gear. DRDGOLD also provided some glister with a preview of its half-year results, which will show a big turnaround thanks to a higher rand gold price and the first-full period of production from its Far West Gold Recoveries operation.

Finally, Ascendis has broken its silence on why the sale of its Remedica business in Cyprus fell through after a year of negotiations. And all the latest from DealMakers too.

I hope you have a good weekend.

Stephen Gunnion

Managing Editor, InceConnect