BN Daybreak Thurs 8 Jan: Trump’s tanker seizures, Novus “lying” scandal & Orion’s 36% surge

In today’s episode of BizNews Daybreak, Alec Hogg covers a dramatic morning for global and local markets. The Trump administration ramps up pressure on Venezuela with oil tanker seizures, while we hear of escalating repression of the population by Maduro's underlings. Locally, the JSE sees action as HCI sells its 65% stake in Hermanus's biggest shopping mall for R600m and the ASP Isotopes-Renergen deal officially closes. Plus, regulators slam Novus for "conscious lying" in the Mustek takeover, with its chairman deeply implicated. Plus, mining guru Peter Major explains why portfolio favourite Orion Minerals has surged 36% this week..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of today's BizNews Daybreak:.Good morning. The markets are moving and so are you from the BizNews studio. This is BizNews Daybreak for Thursday, the 8th of January 2026. I'm Alec Hogg. Here's the context you need to win the day.In our overnight global news update, the Trump administration has ramped up its enforcement actions against Venezuelan oil, seizing a Russian-flagged tanker in the North Atlantic and a second vessel in the Caribbean. The US president is also taking a hard line on local defence contractors, threatening to block dividends and share buybacks by these companies—quite a swing, specifically at the major contractor Raytheon.Here’s Doug Krissner from Bloomberg: "US forces seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the North Atlantic after a weeks-long pursuit across the Atlantic Ocean, and a second vessel was apprehended near the Caribbean Sea. These moves were described as enforcement actions tied to the blockade of Venezuelan oil exports."Separately, the Trump administration said the US will seek to control Venezuelan oil sales indefinitely. Today, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told the Goldman Sachs conference sales would initially come from crude held in storage and later from fresh oil production. "The upside there is huge. But of course, this is development. This takes time; this takes investment. But I think we could get several hundred thousand barrels a day of additional production in the short to medium term if the conditions are there for just small capital deployments."That was Energy Secretary Chris Wright speaking at a Goldman Sachs energy conference in Miami. Now, the White House indicated the U.S. has already begun marketing the crude oil, and we are told Chevron is in talks with the U.S. on expanding its licence in Venezuela. At the same time, President Trump said on Truth Social that Venezuela will use the proceeds of these oil sales to purchase American agricultural products and American-made medicine.Also today, the president said he will not permit defence companies to issue dividends or buy back stock. Trump cited excessive pay packages for executives as well as unsatisfactory maintenance and delivery of military equipment. Here is Palmer Luckey, founder of Anduril: "Big picture—if these companies were doing really well, and if they were living up to their end of the bargain, I don't think you would see any action from Trump or others on this. It's really a reflection of how many problems we have with our defence industrial base."That was Palmer Luckey, founder at Anduril, speaking to Bloomberg at the CES in Las Vegas. Incidentally, shares in the major defence contractors dropped. Then after the bell, President Trump threatened to cut ties with Raytheon. Trump said either Raytheon steps up and begins making more upfront investments like plants and equipment, or the company will no longer be doing business with the Department of Defense. Raytheon's share price dropped 2.5% on Wall Street during the trading session, but it bounced back in after-hours trade.Bitcoin and the Rand also eased back overnight. Crypto is now at $91,000 and the Rand at R16.45. The comparisons were around $93,000 and R16.30. Well, it just shows that volatility certainly has started off on the front foot in this new year.In the business portfolios overnight, it was a generally solid session for both local and international stocks. Google's 2.5% gain was a bright spot in a steady U.S. market, while Palantir's 1% increase took it back above $180. A similar rise in Nvidia—which we did sell out of the portfolio—took the world's most valuable stock to just under $190 a share. It doesn't seem like there is anything to stop that rise at the moment.On the JSE, the resources index fell sharply yesterday. It pulled the overall index down about two-thirds of a percent. Our stocks, as mentioned earlier, rose against the general trend. Orion was again the highlight, picking up another 10%. More on that later. There were also solid gains for most of the others in the Shift and Ricardo portfolios.Also on the local news front, it's not often that the resort town of Hermanus—which is where we hold the BizNews conference in March this year (get your ticket if you haven't got one yet; they're filling up fast)—gets a mention on the Stock Exchange News Service. But that happened yesterday. HCI, a stock much beloved by the BizNews tribe (we brought it in, and it's done well), issued a voluntary statement on SENS announcing that it has agreed to sell its 65% stake in Hermanus’s dominant shopping centre, the Whale Coast Village Mall, for 600 million Rand. The deal values the centre overall at a hefty 925 million Rand.HCI management has a clear plan for the cash. The first priority is to settle approximately 328 million Rand in debt held by the subsidiary that executed the sale. Clearly, it's not getting the full 600 million into the coffers. The remaining funds, around 300 million Rand, will be distributed to shareholders of the subsidiary, which means that's going to be injecting fresh liquidity back into HCI, which is on a mission to reduce its debt. The share price ended slightly higher yesterday.Also late yesterday afternoon, an announcement from ASP Isotopes said that it had officially closed its acquisition of Free State-based helium mining operation Renegen. The deal creates a potential global powerhouse in helium and isotopes, targeting high-growth industries like semiconductors and quantum computing. The combined group is set to access $750 million in funding from the US government and Standard Bank, which will be used to expand the Virginia Gas Project. Renegen CEO Stefano Marani will join the new executive team at ASP Isotopes.Also on the local front, if you thought South African regulators were toothless, think again. The Takeover Regulation Panel has slammed Novus Holdings and its chairman, Adrian Zeutler, for what it calls "conscious lying" during the Mustek takeover. The ruling, which was 119 pages, shows that while he was claiming independence, Zeutler and his broker, Numus Capital, were actually operating not just from the same office, but the same desk—literally sharing it at Suite 704 in Regent Road, Sea Point.The penalty for this deception: Novus is being forced to hike its offer by 18% to 15.41 per Mustek share. That's a massive 55 million Rand additional cost for trying to game the system. Novus has appealed the hearing, but if you read through that 119-page report (we’ve got a detailed statement on BizNews and the report itself is on SENS), you'll see they have a mountain to climb to turn around the evidence against them, including emails. It seems one needs to be very careful now. Essentially, the broker who was supposed to be acting independently was sending updates to both the CFO of Novus and privately to Zeutler’s private email account.Yesterday we highlighted the price surge by developing copper miner Orion Minerals. It was up from 22 cents to 27 cents, and then in yesterday's trade, it reached 30 cents. That means shareholders have seen a near 36% return this week. It is a stock in the BizNews Ricardo portfolio. During Mining Web Weekly, which was recorded yesterday afternoon, I asked our resources guru Peter Major to explain what Orion is about and what is making BizNews tribe members so excited."The jump is maybe like snow falling on the roof," Major said. "It just keeps falling until the roof eventually caves in. It’s like Alexander the Great invading Persia; he had to bring his siege engines up to the castle walls. You beat and beat for weeks and saw no indent at all, but he knew from experience: just keep beating. Once the crack is there, it goes quick.Orion has told us their strategy for years. They’ve raised a billion Rand in five years, and people started saying this looks like a lifestyle company because they didn't seem to be getting closer to production. They are the biggest landowner of all mining companies in Africa—like a kid in a candy store with too many properties: copper, nickel, zinc, and great mines at Okiep.Finally, the board got the message about 11 months ago. They said, 'We need to raise more money, and this money is going towards producing.' They brought on Tony Lennox, who was at Palabora, the biggest copper mine in Southern Africa. Tony has brought on people he trusts—also big copper miners. They should be able to do Prieska in their sleep; it’s less than half as deep as Palabora and has a beautiful, solid ore body.Tony says he puts his name on the block: they will be producing concentrate by Christmas 2026. And the copper price has helped—it's gone from barely $9,000 to $13,000. Then in comes Glencore. They have offered $250 million, which is more than enough to build the mine and the mill. Triple Flag, an American streaming company, has offered $75 million for the gold and silver byproducts. So with Glencore, Triple Flag, and the IDC's equity and debt funding, Orion has more than enough money. They will be producing rock and hopefully concentrate by December."Back to the global scene now. The FT News Briefing has an incisive report on the new wave of crackdowns launched by Venezuela's government after the US captured Nicolás Maduro. Here are our partners at the Financial Times:"Things in Venezuela are deteriorating in the days after the US ousted President Nicolás Maduro. The Venezuelan government is being temporarily led by Maduro's vice president, and the government's been cracking down on any show of support for the authoritarian leader's removal. Michael Stott, the FT's Latin America editor, joins us.'I'd say there's a sort of tense calm at the moment in Caracas,' Stott says. 'People are still very frightened. They were scared by the US strikes on Saturday night, but they're also scared by the repression afterwards. You’ve got the regime's security forces and gun-toting paramilitaries intimidating people. Under Delcy Rodríguez, there’s a big crackdown on journalists. State television is barely referring to what's happening; they’re pretending almost nothing has happened. There is an emergency decree threatening anybody who celebrated Maduro's ouster. Security forces are checking WhatsApp messages, and people are frantically deleting them. Internationally, there's dismay that Maduro's ouster has not led to a new dawn, but just another wave of repression.'"And now you have the edge. For the full interviews and the details behind these stories, head over to biznews.com. I'm Alec Hogg. Thanks for starting your morning with us. Now go and seize the day.

BN Daybreak Thurs 8 Jan: Trump’s tanker seizures, Novus “lying” scandal & Orion’s 36% surge

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