Sasha Naryshkine: Richemont slump won’t last, we’re sticking with the stock

 The share price of luxury goods group Richemont has been under pressure lately falling from July’s peak of R112 to the current R97 – a 13% reverse. The new Chinese President’s aggressive approach towards conspicuous consumption has been tagged as the major reason. In our CNBC Africa Power Lunch interview today, Vestact’s Sasha Naryshkine explained … Read more

Anchor Capital price overcooked for now – CEO Peter Armitage

Chief executives are naturally optimistic. They need to be to shrug off challenges and devise new ways of adding value for shareholders. But sometimes even the greatest optimists feel compelled to call a halt to irrational exuberance (courtesy Alan Greenspan) as Peter Armitage, CEO of today’s new listing Anchor Capital, did in this interview. The … Read more

Patrice Rassou: FNB has taken the South African market by storm

It’s unlikely that you will find a South African in the country who has access to the radio who doesn’t know ‘Steve from bleep bank’. Between FNB’s overwhelming marketing campaign, its definitive move to customer-centric banking and its branding facelift, one has to wonder what the costs have been, and if the juice has been … Read more

FirstRand posts expected 21% jump in FY earnings

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – FirstRand reported an expected 21 percent rise in full-year earnings on Tuesday but South Africa’s second biggest lender by value did not pay out a special dividend as investors had been hoping. FirstRand said diluted normalised earnings per share, which exclude certain one-time items, came in at 331 cents from a restated … Read more

Armitage’s Anchor heads for JSE – zero to R180m valuation in 2 years

I met Peter Armitage in the early 1990s when the young chartered accountant decided to switch from auditing to Investor Relations and work for my dear friend the late David Carte. They had  fun together and Carte always spoke highly of Armitage, but knew he was always destined for more than building reputations of others. Highly … Read more

S&P: Why we disagree with the Moody’s downgrade

S&P regards itself as the most conservative of the world’s three major credit ratings agencies. So the news that it will not be adjusting the ratings of any SA bank is heartening in a banking system rocked by the collapse of microlending pioneer Abil. In our interview on CNBC Africa’s Power Lunch today, S&P’s primary … Read more

No share buyback in BHP Billiton spin-off plan

While today’s eagerly-awaited release by BHP Billiton of details of its spin-off of non-core mining assets into a separate, yet-to-be-named entity has shed more light on the process, it remains to be seen how the South African thermal coal and aluminium components of the yet-to-be-named new holding company will be affected. Given that the spin-off … Read more