🔒 Premium: When Cy Jacobs met Markus Jooste – his inside track on spotting fraudsters

START YOUR MORNING BY LISTENING TO TODAY’S BIZNEWS BREAKFAST BRIEFING PODCAST: BBB Ep30: Markets react to US job numbers; Cloudflare rallies 27%; Uber making more money than ever, Apple is in hot water

(If you’re struggling to access BBB via Spotify or iTunes, an audio-only version is also available on YouTube. Click here). 

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When SA’s quiet investing genius Cy Jacobs agreed to deliver a keynote (and debate Piet Viljoen) at BNC#4, it made my week. He keeps a relatively low profile. While well respected in his industry, Cy’s name is not up in lights outside it. 

Those in the BizNews tribe who haven’t yet come across the co-founder and investment chief at 36ONE (AUM: R33bn) are in for a treat. He’s my favourite kind of person – a straight talker with a rational mind. We’ve just uploaded an appetiser on BizNews TV – the recording of Friday’s in-studio interview. Click here to watch.  

There’s plenty of meat in the discussion. Highlighted by his fascinating insights into former Steinhoff CEO Markus Jooste, starting 17 minutes in. Cy, a chartered accountant, enjoyed an inside track having once been audit manager at JD Group, one of Jooste’s many acquisitions with fraudulently inflated shares.

He approached Jooste at the group’s results presentation and, in contrast to most of us, quickly saw through SA’s biggest ever con man. I won’t spoil the story. Except that it confirms how sociopaths are everywhere, some occupying corner offices at ‘respectable’ corporations. Lest we ever forget. 

More for you to read today: 

• The ANC is out of touch. William Saunderson-Meyer says Ramaphosa sung from the RET hymn sheet at the ANC’s national policy conference.
• Investors Brace for More Market Volatility as Earnings Estimates Slump. Stock market again at risk of appearing expensive, even after this year’s tumble.
• 20 Ideas for Adjusting Your Stock and Bond Portfolio. Stocks are down, inflation is high and a recession may be looming. We asked financial experts what investors should do.
• Russian Aggression Brings High Anxiety to Strategic Sliver of Europe. NATO is concerned about the Poland-Lithuania border region between Kaliningrad and Belarus; ‘What comes in the near future, who can say?’

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