In the Knott-Craig family the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Where his father revolutionised SA’s communications industry through the building of Vodacom, Alan Junior is doing something similar to deliver free internet access to the bottom of the pyramid. His Isizwe’s township wi-fi offering which switched on in Tshwane yesterday. It was a … Read more
Biznews blogger Alexx Zarr reflects the dark mood which many fellow South African citizens have right now. And reminds us that culture is created by the way we do things, the standards we ascribe to through our daily actions. He echoes concern surrounding our collective Drift, a worrying slide articulated by former Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, … Read more
Done properly, management is one of the most honourable of professions. Right up there alongside nursing and teaching. Because the right kind of manager gets to help others. Full time. Coaching. Teasing out hidden talent. Identifying and untapping potential where less patient beings will only see problems. But bad managers are among the most destructive … Read more
For as long as the US continues with Quantitative Easing – running the printing presses – interest rates worldwide will remain low and non-cash assets will continue flourishing. It’s an ideal scenario for Arrowhead, the JSE-listed property group which hunts outside the areas where others focus. In the year to end September, Arrowhead bought two … Read more
In case you haven’t noticed, I love books. And reading. So not surprisingly, my favourite people tend to be those who read a lot. Conversation is so much more interesting when driven by those with views shaped by more than the superficial. Patrick Lawlor is one of those. After doing his time in the financial … Read more
The Biznewz community is well aware of concerns around our society’s slide to disinterested mediocrity. Russell Loubser’s warning about what he described as Drift was one of the site’s best read articles. Last week former Finance Minister and now head of National Planning Trevor Manuel picked up on the theme. But Manuel’s speech, borrowed from … Read more
The newly listed Twitter has had an exciting first day out on the market. The Twitter IPO was priced at $26 a share, but opened at over $45 on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday. After a volatile day of trading, the share closed at $44.90 – an impressive performance overall. But what is … Read more
Mining entrepreneur Robert Friedland is, well, interesting. Listed by Forbes magazine as a billionaire with $1.15bn net worth, Ivanhoe Mining’s founder attracts controversy like horses do flies. A brief Google search uncovers a two year jail sentence for drug dealing; an early US project still ranked the country’s worst contaminator; and, more recently, news of … Read more
Around the world, the pattern is the same – as incomes and education levels rise, birth rates fall. What’s happening now, however, is an even more marked . In rich countries around the world, birthrates are falling below replacement level fertility – people are no longer having enough kids to replace themselves. In this interesting … Read more
Small business expert Irvine Green encourages budding entrepreneurs to have what he calls ‘ideas veld fires’. This entails letting your imagination run wild as you think about money-making opportunities and only discarding options when you have thought them all through carefully. Sometimes ideas that seem silly on the surface turn out to be highly lucrative. … Read more