One of the reasons why Africa has failed to develop a vibrant manufacturing sector and other markers of a modern economy is that far too many of Africa’s best and brightest see a career in politics as the best and even only way to make money, have influence, and exercise power. If the African century … Read more
Investec CEO Stephen Koseff told me today that the proposed sale of Kensington was part of the banking group’s decision to simplify its business: “We got a good lesson in the Crisis and are determined to simplify our business.” He admitted the timing of the purchase of the sub prime lending business was “very bad – … Read more
It was the kind of incident you don’t easily forget even though it happened a couple decades back. Leading City of London investment analyst Michael Coulson, then employed by Nedcor Securities, wrote a critical commentary on a major South African group. Unfortunately for Coulson, the group happened to be one of Nedbank’s major clients back home … Read more
We’ve been paying a lot of attention to Capitec. It’s a phenomenal story of a micro-lender that has gone mainstream, ploughing in the high profits from its unsecured lending into creating a transaction fee base now approaching R1bn a year. But as serious problems have emerged for its core business, questions have been raised around … Read more
Banking group Investec’s share price took a 3% hit today in the wake of the group’s traditional pre-closing period information session with shareholders. CEO Stephen Koseff came to the CNBC Africa studio to talk about ongoing struggles in Australia and a growth of only 3% in lending in South Africa. He quipped off air that … Read more
The Industrial Development Corporation plays a key role in supporting South African manufacturing. It is proud of having created 19 000 new jobs in its most recent financial year to end March. With an asset base of R127bn and annual disbursements of R13bn, it is bound to make some mistakes. But as you’ll read from … Read more
Allan Gray’s Duncan Artus discusses why the company is such a big investor in Naspers, and how its Sasol shareholding knocked a hefty 4% off the total return of its biggest unit trust last year.
South Africans have had to endure the sacking of a country, economically speaking, for almost ten years while former president Jacob Zuma graced our political stage.
Du Plessis tendered his resignation immediately after Phulemela’s audit committee approved financial results for the year to end July.
Octogenarian Neil Jowell of Trencor is comfortably the oldest of the Top 100 while PSG’s Piet Mouton, at 37, is three years below the next youngest CEO.