Alec Hogg's Transcribed Interviews - Business & Financial Interviews

Sappi: The challenges of competing in a shrinking, dying market

8th November 20138th November 2013

The companies that generally make headlines are the sexy ones – companies in exciting, novel growth industries like Facebook or Twitter, or companies producing sexy, advanced products like Apple or Samsung. Far less attention goes to companies that are eking out a living in mature or declining markets, even though such companies form a large … Read more

Ending squatters, non-paying tenants in property rentals – insurance for 10% of contracted amount

7th November 2013

OK, so at 10% of the rental contract, this is hardly a cheap solution. But given horror stories of how hard it is to remove a tenant from an investment property, there is no doubt this new innovation from Rentshield will have plenty takers. As we heard during our interview on CNBC Africa’s Power Lunch … Read more

Bye bye horse racing, hello GT247 as Purple Capital goes back to its CFD core business

7th November 20137th November 2013

I’ve always liked the way Charles Savage and Mark Barnes, his chairman at Purple Capital, go about their business. These are two of the great characters of SA’s financial services sector. Never afraid to have a go, they’ve also got the bruises to prove that experience sometimes brings pain. Today’s trading update from their under-performing … Read more

With volumes down, nowhere for MTN, Vodacom to hide as SA’s mobile price war finally erupts

8th November 20137th November 2013

First Avenue’s research analyst Nadim Mohamed has finished crunching his numbers on the impact of the sharp drop in SA’s Mobile Termination Rate. As his chart reproduced below shows, from being 6th highest of 54 countries surveyed – generating super profits for the MTN/Vodacom duopoly – SA is now 12th lowest. Mohamed warns of significant … Read more

UPDATED: Sekunjalo to rejuvenate Independent? Not on this performance. Then again, maybe this isn’t yardstick

7th November 20137th November 2013

There was more interest than usual in yearend results from investment holding company Sekunjalo. Earlier this year the company’s principal shareholder Iqbal Surve led a consortium which paid R2bn for leading SA newspaper group Independent News & Media. I was looking forward to chatting to Surve’ about that deal to get an idea how the … Read more

Property investment magnet: confident JSE listing yielded 11.8%, confident to grow in 2014

7th November 2013

Originally a focused Eastern Cape property play, Rebosis has taken full advantage of the investment community’s infatuation with the sector, successfully launching two large capital raising exercises in the past year. That has bumped its market cap to a now weighty R4.25bn. Flagship Hemingways Mall in East London is being expanded (a more profitable way … Read more

SA’s volatile platinum mines – how markets and buyers are responding to labour unrest

7th November 20137th November 2013

The biggest challenge facing people trying to assess the prospects for South Africa’s platinum mining industry is not labour unrest per se. Rather, the issue is trying to handle the uncertainty that has become the hallmark of labour relations on South African mines. Will there be strikes? Will they last two weeks? Three? Four? Will … Read more

SA investors pour money into global ETF tracker – smart money or mug money?

7th November 20137th November 2013

Although the rand has lost a lot of ground against the US dollar over the last eighteen months, it seems that South African investors have nevertheless developed a taste for US-denominated global ETFs. According to Wehmeyer Ferreira of Deutsche Bank, money has been pouring into the Bank’s db X-tracker US Fund. In fact, since the … Read more

Old Mutual CEO “so optimistic” – will build on four-fold share price surge since 2009’s dark days

7th November 20136th November 2013

Five years ago, Old Mutual teetered on the brink. Big Green’s global expansion from its SA base looked like going terribly wrong as the Global Financial Crisis exposed those swimming without trunks – and Old Mutual’s US operations were very much among them. The very real prospect existed that the SA Government might have to … Read more

Comair director Gupta nets R27m profit offloading shares to company – CEO says didn’t know who was selling

7th November 20136th November 2013

Controversial IT and media entrepreneur Atul Gupta found himself in the thick of it again after yesterday’s sale of his shares in Comair, the JSE-listed company which operates British Airways and Kulula branded airlines in SA. He owned 4.7% of the company’s equity, bought mostly in 2009 at around 180c a share. Gupta was an … Read more