This section houses interviews conducted by Biznews, both video and audio, and other interesting inputs sourced from Third Parties.
The gold price has been a surprisingly boring story for the last few months. After shooting the lights out in the immediate wake of the 2007/8 financial crisis, the yellow metal has taken a real backseat in the last twelve months, as the process of monetary and fiscal tightening has begun in earnest, albeit haltingly. … Read more
Construction company Protech Khuthele has filed for business rescue, citing cash flow problems in the wake of a defaulting debtor. Says Bloomberg, “The Johannesburg-based company, whose chief executive officer, Antony Page, resigned on May 28, has voluntarily filed for protection against its creditors, the company said in a statement today. Protech can’t meet its commitments … Read more
The seasonally adjusted Kagiso Purchasing Manager’s Index fell to 44.3 index points in May from 47.4 in April. The PMI is made up of a number of indices, these indices refer to business activity, employment, new sales orders, prices and expected business activity. When the PMI is above 50 it indicates a healthy, expanding manufacturing industry … Read more
GML, a Mauritian company headed by Arnaud Lagesse has just recently popped onto the radar being named one of the World Economic Forum Global Growth companies for 2014. The highly diversified group is an institution in Mauritius, with 13,000 employees, and a focused strategy of expanding into Africa, it seems like GML is certain to … Read more
South Africa is notorious for its achilles tendon, labour unrest. The most heavily impacted victim of strike action at the moment is the platinum sector, all relevant stakeholders have been severely affected by the halt of production, billions of rands have been lost in revenue and wages. And the market has responded accordingly, with share prices … Read more
Esor, a civil engineering and construction group has had a difficult time of late, with a number of loss-making contracts on its books and share prices dipping nearly 80% over the last year. The company released its results today, making an expected headline loss per share. Adding to the quagmire of negative press for Esor, … Read more
Retailers in South Africa have historically enjoyed good returns on capital, and been somewhat shielded by the kinds of price wars that have reduced retail margins to razor thinness in many developed economies. But competition is heating up at the low end of the sector in South Africa with the entrance of Walmart, and many … Read more
Net1 has had some very bad publicity over the last few weeks, with a slew of articles criticising its practice of making various deductions to the social grants that it pays out using its proprietary payment solution, and for making what some have called predatory loans to social grant recipients. The kerfuffle has involved the … Read more
Verimark is a fascinating company – South Africa’s only direct TV retailer, and increasingly, a force in South Africa’s brick-and-mortar retail world with stores in malls around the country. When Verimark got its start in 1977 peddling the type of strange new products that established retailers wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole, there were … Read more
A lot of the business news press is filled with discussions of how various macroeconomic factors and economic policy are going to influence investment returns – I myself have written a lot on the topic. But according to the folks at RECM, smart investors don’t allow themselves to be distracted by the macroeconomic news of … Read more