Sanlam lets ARC invest in asset management rats and mice
It’s been a busy week for Sanlam, the Cape Town-based financial services firm that historically entrenched itself in the Afrikaans community and has grown from there. The company released results, announced a B-BBEE transaction and suffered a 4% decline in the share price. The standout asset management result in recent times has without a doubt been Sygnia, reflected in 35% …
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Truworths – bad day at the Office
The Office is a UK comedy starring Ricky Gervais that has brought tears of joy to many, but the UK shoe business that shares a name with the show has brought tears of sadness to Truworths. It hasn’t been a happy time on mud island for many South African corporates. The 2016 Brexit referendum caused immense pain for the …
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Kicking the (oil) can down the road
Sasol is up 600% since the share price collapsed in March. It’s down 11% over the past two days. This gives an idea of how nervous investors are about the company after the latest financial results were released. Sasol is my single largest exposure in my portfolio. That’s not because I bet the farm on the stock, but because I …
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Survival of the Fittest
Lockdown Level 2 is here and boets everywhere are rejoicing. It’s time to klap gym again chana, maybe H2O will even be back this summer! Not so fast chaps. Only 50 people will be allowed in any gym at a time, presumably including the staff and certainly including the skinny folk on the spinning machines. Friends may not let friends …
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An Epic battle with Apple (and Google)
Gaming has become an incredibly lucrative industry. I’m not talking about slot machines; this is the world of mobile, PC and console games. Fortnite has more than 350 million registered players. To put that in context, there are around 330 million people in the United States. Epic Games is the publisher of Fortnite and is worth $17.3bn after its latest …
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Bank earnings collapse under economic fallout
I am almost tired of writing about how Capitec’s valuation cannot be justified. Almost. Trading at a Price / Book value way above its peers, Capitec’s top management continue to shrug off the realities of lockdown. Shareholders are reassured that everything will be ok and that Capitec will still show a profit this year. Will that be the case? Latest …
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Clicks took all its vitamins this year
Clicks released a voluntary trading statement today. Voluntary statements generally mean good news, because JSE executives in general aren’t famous for shouting from the rooftops when things are going badly. Clicks is an interesting business, operating an iconic retail business and a powerful wholesale business. The group also has a number of smaller retail chains. the_ad id=”3223″ Margin mix is …
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Sasol’s assets nosedive in value, but what about a rights issue?
Sasol released a trading statement today that used the word “impairment” many times. That isn’t usually good news for shareholders, but Sasol was up over 4% regardless. Let’s unpack how that might be possible. What is an impairment? An impairment is an accounting entry that recognises a drop in the value of an asset. Auditors place a lot of focus …
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Hotel industry suffers with vacant earnings
City Lodge’s well-documented pains are not unique. Covid-19 has smashed the tourism industry globally, with airlines and hotels the worst hit of all. These are costly businesses to run and losing practically all revenue for months on end was never in the disaster plan. It’s a global problem Hilton reported an earnings decrease of 77.3% to $564m, significantly worse than …
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City Lodge forces a shareholder check-in
City Lodge has had a shocking year, which came to a head this week amid a flurry of market activity and shareholder shock. Lockdown has crushed the business. Forced to close for months on end, the hotel industry is reeling. Despite being a respected, JSE-listed company, City Lodge is on its knees. the_ad id=”3223″ It’s a financial catastrophe Everyone knew …
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