- Growthpoint has released an update covering the nine months to March 2022. The South African property recovery has stumbled. In this market, I prefer having exposure to concentrated property funds rather than those with broad exposure across the market. Read this detailed feature article and see if you agree with me.
- EOH shareholders will be relieved to learn that the conditions related to the disposal of the Information Services business have all been met. EOH has received R422 million in proceeds, including R25 million in interest. The proceeds net of costs are R374 million and will be used to reduce the R1.2 billion bridge facility. After this repayment, group debt is R1.33 billion, comprising a R500 million three-year bullet facility and the remainder of the bridge facility. The share price is still languishing in the mid-R5s and I’m glad I got out of the way when I broke-even at just over R7.
- Tongaat Hulett is still reeling from the Takeover Regulation Panel’s ruling that the waiver of a mandatory offer related to Magister Investments is a nullity. This throws the recapitalisation plan out the window and puts the company into significant difficulty in finding a solution for the balance sheet. Against this backdrop, it’s not surprising that the company is not going to meet the deadline to release financials for the year ended March by 30 June 2022. They can’t finalise results unless there is a plan, otherwise the “going concern” assumption becomes a little difficult.
- Naspers and Prosus released trading statements for the year ended March 2022. The Prosus share price is down nearly 37% this year and Naspers is down almost 28%. In this period, Prosus invested $6.2 billion right at the top of the venture capital / tech cycle in growth verticals like EdTech and Food Delivery. I still have major question marks about the unit economics of many of these business models. Headline earnings per share (HEPS) is down this year because of lower fair value gains, investment in ecommerce businesses (i.e. ones that lose money) and increased net finance costs. The board of Prosus suggests using core HEPS as the best performance indicator, down between 14% and 21% this year. I’m happy to not have a position here.
- Sephaku Holdings has released a trading statement for the year ended March 2022. HEPS has skyrocketed to between 17.20 and 17.78 cents vs. 6.09 cents in the prior period. The share price is down 28% this year and was trading at R1.33 before the announcement was released after hours on Wednesday. Let’s see how it reacts.
- If you are interested in Santova, the JSE small cap that offers solutions in global supply chains, you should check out the investor presentation that was delivered on Wednesday. It gives a thorough overview of the company, its strategy and some of the risks it faces.
- Southern Palladium is going to be one of those mining companies that makes everyone wish they had studied geology before reading the announcements. In what sounds like a Marvel movie, there are helicopters and gamma rays in the latest update. Based on management’s commentary in the announcement, the Total Magnetic Field survey aimed to confirm the structural integrity of the inferred mineral resource and investigate loss-of-ground disruptions. The aims were achieved and Phase 1 drilling can now commence with a targeted start date of July 2022.
- Raubex and Bauba Resources have announced the final results of Raubex’s mandatory offer to Bauba shareholders. The offer was accepted by holders of 10.59% of the issued shares in Bauba, representing 39.40% of shares held by minority shareholders.
- Separately and importantly, a prescribed officer of Raubex has invested a substantial sum of R4.5 million in the company’s shares.
- Alphamin, the tin miner in the DRC, has confirmed that the recent closure of the Bunagana border post between the DRC and Uganda has no impact on its operations. Alphamin’s exports move through border posts with Uganda that are 1,000km north of the Bunagana town where rebels and DRC government forces are fighting.
- Afrocentric is acquiring the remaining interest in Afrocentric Distribution Services. This is a small related party transaction and required an independent expert to sign off on the terms as being fair to shareholders of Afrocentric. Mazars Corporate Finance was appointed and has provided such an opinion, so the deal is going ahead.
- Advanced Health has announced that it is undertaking an internal strategic review of the business. I always shake my head at these types of announcements. If the company isn’t doing this type of work as part of business as usual, then what are executives being paid to do? I may as well announce that I’m sitting down to write something.
- In another reminder of why attempted arbitrage trades on large corporate deals are often a bad idea, Distell has had to extend the timing of the implementation for the Heineken deal. Distell originally hoped to get approval by the end of June but is now only expecting it before the end of 2022. I always suggest taking a cautious approach when assuming the timing of a regulatory approval from the Competition Commission, especially on landmark deals.
- Despite leaving the business soon, the CEO of Altron has elected to retain the shares that have vested under the incentive plan, other than those sold to cover the tax liability. That’s an encouraging message about the company.
- The group CFO of Vukile Property Fund has sold shares in the company worth nearly R750k.
- An entity related to several directors of Ninety One has acquired shares in the company worth over £900k.
- A director of a subsidiary of African Rainbow Minerals has sold shares worth R1.36 million.
- Trustco has managed to miss the deadline for the release of its interim financial statements and has promised to release them by the end of June. This company has made it known publicly that it dislikes the listed environment and missing deadlines is just part of that overall attitude.
