- STADIO used its AGM as a good excuse to deliver a presentation giving an update on the business. Growth in student numbers is encouraging and there’s a strong bull case to be made for this company. The valuation even looks pretty reasonable to me based on the underlying fundamentals. To explain this in more detail, I wrote this feature article.
- Orion Minerals is busy with a capital raise of A$20 million to invest in its projects in the Northern Cape. Around A$6 million has been secured, so there’s quite a gap to close. Investors have asked for more time to finalise their decisions, a direct result of a world that is becoming rather scared. This isn’t a good time to raise capital, so Orion needs to push as hard as possible here. I cover all the details in this feature article.
- A British subsidiary of Glencore has formally pleaded guilty to seven counts of bribery in connection with oil operations in several African countries. Glencore admitted to paying over $28 million in bribes between 2011 and 2016. The UK Serious Fraud Office has confirmed that sentencing will be handed down in November. Glencore has told the market that it expects to pay up to $1.5 billion to settle various inquiries, of which $1.1 billion was already handed down in the US. The Glencore share price is up around 10% this year.
- Anglo American has announced rough diamond sales for De Beer’s fifth sales cycle of 2022. Sales of $650 million were higher than $604 million in the previous cycle and much higher than $477 million in the comparable cycle of the prior year. The company has indicated strong demand from the US and a gradual reopening of sales outlets in China.
- PPC released a trading statement on Wednesday afternoon and promptly lost a fifth of its value, which gives you a clue as to its contents. The update relates to the year ended March 2022. The numbers get really messy because of discontinued operations and the impact of hyperinflation in Zimbabwe. EBITDA from continuing operations (excluding Zimbabwe) is down by up to 4% and the headline loss per share is expected to be between -12 and -15 cents. In some good news, cash generated from operations increased by between 4% and 8%.
- Mustek recently suffered the tragic loss of its founder, David Kan. The company will need to find its feet going forward. In the meantime, the classic strategy of share buybacks continues. During the past few weeks, Mustek repurchased 2.53% of shares in issue. The general authority is for 12.78% of shares outstanding. The share price is up 49% over the past year and is still on a low Price/Earnings multiple, though many are attributing that to an unsustainable earnings base driven by consumer demand for tech hardware during the pandemic. Still, buybacks at a low multiple are what you want to see as an investor.
- Murray & Roberts has organised its group into various business platforms. The company hosts investor events in which each platform head gives a presentation. Thankfully, the presentations are made available online. Here are the links if you want to get specific details on the platforms in the business: Energy, Resources and Infrastructure platform; Mining platform; Power, Industrial and Water platform.
- Between March and June 2022, Resilient REIT repurchased shares to the value of nearly R665 million at a volume-weighted average price of R55.11 per share. A new authority has been granted to repurchase up to 20% of the shares in issue. The current share price is R53.70 and is down around 4% this year.
- A non-executive director of Industrials REIT has bought shares in the company worth around R680k.
- York Timbers has appointed Zukie Siyotula as Chairperson. Ms Siyotula’s current other directorships include Bidvest, African Bank, Toyota Financial Services and several more.
- Castleview Property Fund is now trading under cautionary as the company is in negotiations to acquire properties from a related party. This is a potential reverse takeover, as the value of the properties is higher than the existing net asset value of Castleview. The fund only has a market cap of R205 million and there’s never any trade in the share, so perhaps this will help the company achieve scale and some degree of liquidity in time to come.
- Letshego Holdings, listed in Botswana and on the JSE, has announced the resignation of three independent directors including the Chairman.
- Safari Investments RSA has announced a trading statement related to the final distribution for the six months ended March 2022. This distribution is expected to be between 24% and 32% higher than the comparative final distribution, taking the full year distribution to between 33% and 38% higher than the prior year.
- Octodec is the guarantor of wholly-owned subsidiary Premium Properties’ Domestic Medium-Term Note Programme on the JSE. Global Credit Ratings (GCR) has affirmed Octodec’s credit ratings and improved the outlook from negative to stable.
- Oando Plc has released financial results for the year ended December 2019. That’s not a typo. In case you are an Oando investor who has waited for this for the past couple of years, I suggest you go check out the results. I’m not going to invest any energy reading results that are so far out of date!
