Reports that the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) was caught without adequate foreign currency hedging on its multibillion-rand purchase of locomotives from a Spanish manufacturer did have a familiar ring to them. Transport parastatal ... multibillion-rand hedging losses? Oh yes. Back in 2003, then-chairman of Transnet Bongani Khumalo reported that the state-owned transport utility had posted its first significant operating profit since its incorporation in 1987. The R5.1-billion operating profit certainly did look impressive. Until someone pointed out the R5.4-billion hedging loss notched up by SA Airways, which was at the time part of Transnet.Remarkably, according to a statement by the government, this "foreign-exchange hedging loss" increased to R9.8-billion in 2004. It seems someone at Transnet took out the hedging contract and sort of stuck it in a bottom drawer, not realising it had to be actively managed in line with currency market movements. At the time, Transnet's hedging policy was, very reasonably, based on the assumption that the rand would depreciate against most major currencies. It didn't.Extricating Transnet from this hedging loss was one of the major challenges that faced Maria Ramos when she was appointed to the top job in January 2004. Such was her anger at the ineptitude of those involved it's likely everyone connected to Transnet decided to steer clear of hedging from then.Which may be why, 11 years later, Prasa, whose key Metrorail assets were part of Transnet until 2006, has to pay almost R5-billion for the R3.5-billion unhedged contract it entered into a few years ago. It's actually worse than that - we're only going to get 70 locomotives instead of the 80 we paid for.story_article_left1Starbucks is coming ...Had it not been for Starbucks, I might never have got around to trawling through the utter tedium that is Beijing's Forbidden City, so I feel I owe it something, although I'm not quite sure what.Between mid-2000 and July 2007, Starbucks had a small outlet inside the walls of the city. Given the city's huge cultural and historic importance, the siting reflected an appalling insensitivity by the largest purveyor of bland coffee, but Starbucks says it was invited in by the city's managers.Realising in April 2007 that its days must be numbered, I, ghoulishly and hypocritically, rushed off to get a cup of coffee, and while I was there thought I might as well look around. The city was as tedious as the coffee was bland. Both, perhaps, are acquired tastes.And now Starbucks is heading to South Africa. One is tempted to say we're already very well serviced by excellent local operators, led by non-local sounding Seattle, but the same was thought of Burger King's move into South Africa.story_article_right2SABMiller mum on oustingThe story behind Jamie Wilson's dramatic departure from SABMiller is likely to remain a tightly held secret. The confirmation that acting chief financial officer Dominic de Lorenzo would get the post full time made no reference to Wilson's departure. And shareholders are unlikely to bring it up at this coming week's AGM.But, judging by the bloodshed, or the corporate equivalent of it, in the group's recently released remuneration report, it does seem that Wilson's separation was far from friendly. He lost his right to awards of tens of thousands of potentially hugely valuable SABMiller shares that probably would have been worth several million pounds, particularly if there had been a takeover.Talking of which, is it a coincidence that we've heard less about any deal with Anheuser-Busch Inbev since Wilson's departure?..