One of the fundamental reasons to list a company on a stock exchange is to access capital from the market. There’s so much strategy in capital raising that an entire industry of highly-paid advisors and bankers exists around it. Curro Holdings, one of the private school companies listed on the JSE, has announced a rights issue. The Foschini Group did …
View PostIn this edition, we focus on one of the most important terms in finance: liquidity. This isn’t just useful in your investing journey, but is a key part of any personal finance decision like buying cars or houses. We will just scratch the surface of this concept. We also touch on the development board of the JSE: the AltX. the_ad …
View PostThe front page of Multichoice’s results booklet that was released today describes the group as “Africa’s most loved storyteller” – that’s beautiful, but perhaps not as beautiful as the stunning improvement in their profitability. StatsSA’s last major survey (done in 2017) estimated that there are 16.2m households in South Africa. Multichoice has 8.4m subscribers in South Africa, which suggests that …
View PostThe JSE was a hot place to raise capital back in 2014 – 2016. Red hot. At the height of this capital raising frenzy, the JSE allowed a new type of company to be listed: a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC). Enter the SPAC Normally, a company listing on the JSE must have a decent track record and meet stringent …
View PostWelcome to the next instalment in the jargon-busting series of articles on The Finance Ghost. Let’s jump straight in with one term from each world of investments and financial management: Hedge fund Probably the sexiest term in finance but also one of the least understood, “hedge fund” is synonymous with high-flying investment professionals earning huge money and having movies made …
View PostFinancial jargon can be so frustrating. It’s one thing talking about the basics of investment analysis etc. but as things get more complicated, you just have to know some of the jargon. Here’s some jargon to get you started: Big balance sheet A balance sheet is simply a statement of all assets and liabilities of a company. You have a …
View PostMany make the mistake of thinking that strategy is an esoteric concept, found only in presentations and the agenda of “yet another meeting”. We can hardly blame them for feeling this way. The thought of a “strategy offsite” conjures up images of questionable coffee and impractical hotel venues with diet-ruining lunches. The day only gets worse, offering the prospect of …
View PostThere’s a term in investment banking called “deal fatigue” – from experience, it happens around 6 months into a deal process. That’s usually halfway. Despite numerous late nights and ruined weekends, the parties to the transaction just can’t seem to agree. The whole deal might fall over, taking your bonus with it. You spend every waking hour tweaking the financial …
View PostWithin the South African business community, there are giants who seem to get it right time and time again. In contrast, there are others whose fall from grace has been quite spectacular, like Markus Jooste over alleged accounting fraud in Steinhoff and Christo Wiese over a number of poor investments. Let’s focus on one of the giants with a much …
View PostCorporate mergers and acquisitions are fascinating beasts. In case you’re wondering, MAC doesn’t stand for mergers and acquisitions, but more on that later. The headlines always describe the deal as though nothing can go wrong. “Tongaat Hulett sells Starch division to Barloworld for R5.35 billion,” screamed the business media back in March. The better media houses (like Creamer Media) typically …
View Post