The alcohol ban really has gotten to the point of being ridiculous. The old saying of “cutting off your nose to spite your face” applies here. On one hand, government runs around trying to attract investment. Failing that, we take out loans from international finance organisations to keep the country afloat. On the other hand, we systematically destroy our sources …
View PostIn challenging times, companies often decide to stick to their knitting. They dispose of non-core businesses, especially when those businesses are underperforming and are dragging on shareholder returns. The cash is often used to pay down debt, de-risk the group and allow for complete focus on what the group is actually good at. This exact playbook has been used by …
View PostTelkom is an excellent example of a company that has had to move away from its traditional business model, although the journey has been anything but straightforward. As Telkom emerges from a painful retrenchment and restructuring phase, the company is looking to the future. With more than 12m customers and a market share in the SA mobile market of more …
View PostMany of you are familiar with the term FAANG, although a recent poll I ran on Facebook did suggest that many readers think it is a type of tooth. It’s not a tooth It stands for Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google (although the listed holding company of Google is called Alphabet these days). Coined a few years ago, the …
View PostIt’s a difficult word, courage. Brimming with emotive imagery, it unleashes thoughts of what you would do if you were plunged into the situations that heroes find themselves in. Getting to grips with the concept of courage requires us to consider potential scenarios that we hope won’t come to pass. These scenarios sometimes become reality, which is when crisis sets …
View PostIt’s worth stating up-front that references to photography in this article are quite naughty, because the current excitement around Kodak has absolutely nothing to do with photography. You may be old enough to remember yellow Kodak stores in shopping malls that allowed you to print photos from film (?!?) and even buy photo albums and cameras. Kodak’s business model was …
View PostIf you are too young to figure out the Disney reference here, you need to do some Googling. “The Lion King” was around long before people paid ridiculous prices for shares in electric car manufacturers that are barely profitable. Dinosaur industry Unlike Tesla and other new-age companies, Kumba Iron Ore is an absolute dinosaur of a company. When Pumba was …
View PostIs there a more emotive topic for the South African middle class than emigration? We are staring down the barrel of the toughest economic times this country has faced since democracy. It makes the 2009 Global Financial Crisis look tame (the numbers don’t lie: real GDP fell -1.5% in 2009 and we are expecting worse than -7% in 2020). When …
View PostThe S&P500 is a stock index. An index is simply a weighted average of a bunch of underlying stocks, allowing investors to track how an overall market is doing. Every index has certain rules for inclusion. The starting point is usually (but not always) a specific stock market (e.g. the JSE) followed by a sorting system (by industry e.g. the …
View PostIllusions of grandeur. Hubris. These are fancy words for the root cause of much destruction of shareholder value across the JSE: corporate egos. Once upon a time, Taste Holdings operated a business called Scooters Pizza. It was a home-grown brand that proved to be successful. At a time when JSE companies were being used as acquisition machines, it maybe even …
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