The BBC’s Dragon’s Den is one of my favourite TV shows. Although many of the ideas are hare brained, you can see how important it is for a top entrepreneur – like the Dragons – to have gambling streak. It’s fun to fantasise about which of the businesses I’d like investing in, if I had … Read more
Kevin Hedderwick is my favourite kind of CEO. Modest, hard-working, disciplined and for most of his career, operating under the radar. He believes in finding the right processes and driving their efficient implementation. Once that’s in place, pumping fresh capital into an already successful and proven model. This focused approach has rocketed Famous Brands from … Read more
Will there be another Marikana? A year after violent clashes in the mining sector brought into sharp relief the socio-economic challenges that continue to bedevil South Africa, Gideon du Plessis, General Secretary of trade union Solidarity, reflects on what went wrong. He lists at least 20 reasons behind the conflict and warns that the problems … Read more
One of the most important developments of the last twenty years has been the emergence of China as a major player on the world stage. As China invested in infrastructure and developing its primary and light industrial manufacturing sectors, it developed an almost insatiable hunger for resources. This hunger, together with the uncomfortable fact of … Read more
Some financial services businesses are wide awake. At 17:00 New York time yesterday, New Media phenomenon Twitter tweeted that it has applied for a stock market listing. This morning, London-headquartered ETX Capital made a CFD available for trading in Twitter stock – which won’t be listed for months. The ETX Contract For Difference gives traders … Read more
Some great investment analysis to get your teeth into. Adrian Saville is the CIO of Cannon Asset Managers and an associate professor at GIBS, Africa’s top ranked business school. Fascinating interview below. How’s this for an appetiser: a realistic value for the Rand is R6 to the US Dollar; some of JSE heavyweight stocks are … Read more
I love interviewing self-made South African entrepreneurs. They have a naivety and level of honesty one struggles to extract from battle hardened corporate executives. KZN billionaire Vivian Reddy is very much in that league. We’ve supped, shared seats next to each other on an SAA flight, had numerous email and telephone conversations, and now shared … Read more
Bidvest founder Brian Joffe threw his hat into the Adcock Ingram ring a few months ago when proposing to its board they support his proposal to bring the pharma group into his empire. The Adcock board took umbrage, dismissed his offer as “opportunistic” and opened up the business for pther bids. Three months later, and … Read more
Your first pay cheques feel like a lot of money, until you start spending them. Rent, clothes for work, money for transport, cash for the fun stuff – it doesn’t take long before you start wondering where it all went. Then along comes the financial services army, suggesting many more ways to use your earnings. Unit … Read more
Sometimes it’s easy to feel like a Killjoy. I recall being castigated by fellow dinner guests at a Dimension Data yearend celebration in 1999 after suggesting the company couldn’t keep posting 30% a year revenue growth. That ended in tears. EOH financial director John King had a more diplomatic response today to similar scepticism. But … Read more