Merrill Lynch

Matt Sharratt: The real cost to GDP of Eskom’s load shedding

Joining Alec and Gugu from the CNBC Cape Town studios is Bank of America, Merrill Lynch economist Matt Sharratt. In this interview, Matt identifies the main speculative risks to the growth of the South African economy as being labour strikes, wage negotiations and the ever-present load shedding debacle.

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

David Shapiro on Abil, a bank in turmoil

It is not everyday that an announcement on the Stock Exchange News Service (SENS) creates a frenzy. Today however, Abil’s SENS announcement titled, ‘Quarterly operational update for quarter ended 30 June 2014, changes to the board, trading statement and cautionary announcement‘ did exactly that. Abil’s share price plummeted and unfortunately it seems that an air of … Read more

Old Mutual files to list US asset management business

From Old Mutual: BOSTON; June 30, 2014—OM Asset Management Limited (OMAM), a newly formed holding company for Old Mutual plc’s US-based institutional asset management business, today has filed an S-1 registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in preparation for the proposed Initial Public Offering of a minority of the ordinary shares … Read more

Lessons from the 2008 Meltdown – maybe someone should have gone to jail?

This year, during the five hours that Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger answered questions at the Berkshire Hathaway AGM, I listened closely and sent out a string of 140 character messages via Twitter (@alechogg). A couple days after the meeting were spent catching up my notes. Only now, a fortnight later, is much of the … Read more

Loane Sharp cuts through StatsSA jobs data gobbledegook

After watching one of the clips in this interview, I’ve really seen it all. In recent weeks, StatsSA has released one survey (based on household interviews) which concluded 509 000 jobs were created in SA last year. The same agency published another survey (based on responses from businesses) which said the number was actually 39 … Read more

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