This section houses interviews conducted by Biznews, both video and audio, and other interesting inputs sourced from Third Parties.
Two decades back, I finally cracked a television interview with South Africa’s then best known businessman, hotelier Sol Kerzner. He insisted it be filmed on the newly created artificial beach at his five star Le Touessrok resort in Mauritius. As flights were irregular, I ended up staying in the hotel for almost a week. The … Read more
With less than a month until election day, pundits are having a lot of fun trying to predict what’s going to happen. Big questions include: what will happen with the EFF? How much of the vote will the DA capture? And above all, what will happen to Zuma? Political prediction in South Africa is very … Read more
Reflection is terribly undervalued. In this warp-speed world of ours, we are often pushed into doing rather than thinking; operating instead of contemplating. But over the next few months there is sure to be much reflection in South Africa after the country’s latest economic embarrassment in falling behind Nigeria. Sliding, or Drift as Russell Loubser … Read more
Over the years, far too many businesses have raised money from investors on the promise of JSE listings that never happened. Not so Safari Investments which made its debut today, on cue to a promise made a decade ago to an initial 190 shareholders. That’s not all which makes this commercial property development business different. … Read more
BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager, has been in the spotlight over its recent management reshuffle. It has also been just as busy in South Africa, where it is engaging with investors about global fixed income. In this Podcast, Blackrock director and former Bank of England economist Marilyn Watson speaks to BlackRock’s position on South … Read more
Township property fund Safari Investments, listing on the Johannesburg stock exchange next week, has a loyal group of investors that is determined to stay for the long haul. That much is clear in this interview with its CEO Francois Marais, who says the pension fund-like quality of the fund is proving very attractive. The Real Estate … Read more
Although it’s hard to quantify, it is fairly certain that South Africa has a pretty substantial problem with alcohol abuse. While I personally question the 10% price tag (the South African Medical Journal said alcohol abuse costs the country 10% of GDP, which seems very high by global standards, and the study had some methodological … Read more
As always, David Shapiro offers plenty of insight into the South African market, including the resignation of Adcock CEO Jonathan Louw, the performance of Tiger Brands, and the right issue at Curro. For me, the most interesting piece is when Shapiro talks about clothing manufacturing in South Africa. Recently, Seardel sold its textile business to … Read more
South Africa is a laggard when it comes to the internet. There are a number of reasons for this – there are too few cables connecting Africa to the rest of the world, too little hardline infrastructure to route high-speed internet along, too much inefficiency as a result of the uncompetitive telecommunications sector and so … Read more
Unlike many emerging markets, South Africa has a very robust domestic consumer market. Indeed, consumer spending represents about 60% of the country’s GDP, which is huge, and makes consumer sentiment a really key variable for predicting the health of the broader economy. Given that, the ongoing weakness in consumer confidence is pretty bad sign. It … Read more