African Rainbow Minerals increases its stake in Surge Copper (JSE: ARI)
They describe the stake as being for “investment purposes”
When listed companies acquire stakes in other listed companies, it’s usually because there’s a long-term plan at play. The market doesn’t reward companies for owning small random stakes in other listed companies, as shareholders can just as easily replicate that situation for themselves by going and buying the shares that they actually want. It becomes a different story when a listed company is either buying up shares as they are working towards a takeover, or at least significant influence in a company, as that’s not something that shareholders can go and do themselves.
So, what is African Rainbow Minerals’ plan in respect of Surge Copper? We don’t know at this stage, with the company merely describing the stake as being for “investment purposes” – but they seem to be investing a whole lot more in it, so could there be a bigger plan here? After the latest investment of around R57 million, African Rainbow Minerals will own 19.9% in Surge Copper. They previously had 13.44% before the latest tranche.
With copper as a hot asset at the moment, African Rainbow Minerals is clearly seeking diversification from its core business (iron ore and a few other commodities) and exposure to the copper growth story. Time will tell if they have ambitions to control this asset.
Aveng is indeed loss-making, and by a huge margin (JSE: AEG)
The initial trading statement gave little indication of just how rough the year was
In early June, Aveng released a trading statement that indicated that the company would swing from a profit to a loss in the year ended June 2025. Full marks to the company for giving this early warning and for not taking the easy way out, which would’ve been to say that profits will be more than 20% lower. But even then, the full extent of the loss is quite something to see.
Things got so bad that the headline loss is between A$83.8 million and A$87.2 million vs. a profit of A$38 million in the prior year. On a HEPS basis, that means a headline loss per share of between 63.3 and 67.2 A$ cents. With the share price currently on R5.90, you can therefore very quickly see why the price is down 53% on a year-to-date basis.
Construction is an incredibly risky sector, as projects that go wrong and generate losses are capable of producing huge losses. There are substantial problematic projects in Southeast Asia and Queensland. In fact, the only highlight seems to be New Zealand, where they are now paying tax, as assessed losses have been used up by that operation.
Detailed results are due for release on 19 August.
The concert parties in Prime Kapital’s offer for MAS almost have outright control of the company (JSE: MSP)
Holders of 14.38% of MAS shares found the offer compelling enough to accept it
On a day that started with the news of Prime Kapital increasing the maximum cash amount in the MAS bid from €110 million to €115 million, things ended with an announcement that holders of 14.38% of MAS shares said yes to the Prime Kapital offer.
Cash was king here, attracting far more interest than the preference shares that will be listed on the Cape Town Stock Exchange. The cash allocation is 45.8607% of total cash acceptances, so there was considerably more demand for cash than cash available.
The final numbers are that 11.74% in the company is being acquired for cash and 2.64% is being acquired in exchange for the issue of the new preference shares. The preference share portion would’ve been much smaller if not for a segment of shareholders who noted that they were happy to receive prefs instead of cash in the event of a scale-back of the cash portion.
The announcement from Prime Kapital notes that the joint venture should still have sufficient liquidity to make a distribution to its shareholders (including MAS) and to therefore give MAS a chance to make dividend payments from September 2025.
With the next step being the extraordinary general meeting later this month to vote on potential changes to the board, it looks to me as though Prime Kapital has done enough to ensure that only the directors they feel comfortable with are elected to the board. I know from one of the podcasts I did with Martin Slabbert of Prime Kapital that one of their concerns is the perceived independence of Des de Beer as the most well-known name on the list, given his extensive interests in Europe through Lighthouse.
It’s certainly been an incredibly interesting deal to follow from a corporate finance perspective!
Nedbank is selling its stake in Ecobank (JSE: NED)
Combined with the recent iKhokha acquisition, this means they are doubling down on South Africa
Nedbank is an interesting story at the moment. Unlike a competitor like Standard Bank (JSE: SBK), where South Africa is only around half of group earnings, Nedbank makes most of its money in South Africa. Focus is welcomed by investors, unless the focus is on a market where there isn’t much growth to get excited by. This is why Nedbank’s share price is way off its peers this year, down 17.4%.
There are really only two choices here for Nedbank: they either need to take major steps to diversify away from South Africa in the hopes of playing catch-up on the rest of the continent, or they need to do the very best they can to compete in South Africa while hoping for an improved macro story. The latest corporate activity tells us that they are choosing the latter.
Hot on the heels of the news of the acquisition of iKhokha in South Africa for around R1.6 billion, Nedbank has now announced the sale of the 21.2% shareholding in African banking group Ecobank for around R1.8 billion. The buyer is a private investment company and they will be taking up that full stake.
It’s going to take a few months to finalise the deal, with an expected close in the fourth quarter this year. That would be a quick outcome though, as large deals can often take much longer to go through.
Although Nedbank will still have some exposure to Africa through businesses that it controls rather than has a significant minority stake in, this is still a substantial swing in exposure towards South Africa. It’s a brave play that will be interesting to follow!
Sibanye-Stillwater’s HEPS is a casual 19x higher! (JSE: SSW)
But the share price seems to be running out of puff
Sibanye-Stillwater has been quite the recovery story this year. The share price is up 128% in 2025, but has dropped 17% since the recent 52-week high. Through luck rather than design, I sold at almost exactly the top and redeployed capital into Mr Price (JSE: MRP). It was a long and painful journey of seeing my Sibanye position in the red before we got to that point.
The only way to truly learn from cyclicals is to own them, that much I can tell you.
For the six months to June 2025, Sibanye’s trading statement demonstrates why the share price has done so well. HEPS will be between R1.80 and R2.00, which is around 19x higher than the comparable period! Both gold and PGMs had a stronger performance than before, although it must be noted that they are still in “reduced losses” territory in the US PGM business, rather than a profitable position there.
This sets the scene for the next issue: there’s an impairment in the US operations thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that was signed into US law on 4 July 2025 and that amended the treatment of credits for critical minerals, phasing them out from 2031 to 2034. There’s also an unrelated impairment at Keliber lithium, based on lower forecast lithium prices and other inputs. These may not impact HEPS (impairments are excluded), but they are a sign of concerns.
There were some production issues in the period that led to stockpiling of inventory in both the South African PGM and gold operations. If those prices stay strong in the second half of the year, this should give Sibanye a boost. PGM production was consistent year-on-year and gold production was down 13% year-on-year, so things never seem to be easy for Sibanye.
STADIO is still growing beautifully (JSE: SDO)
The interim period is a great start to the year
STADIO is still coming through as one of the best growth stories on the JSE, with tertiary education as a lucrative business to be in. It’s certainly better than primary education at the moment, with the lower birth rate impacting the ability for companies in that space to fill their schools.
There are no such challenges at STADIO, with the six months to June reflecting growth in HEPS of between 22.8% and 32.7%. This puts it on a range of 19.9 cents to 21.5 cents.
The share price is up almost 30% this year and closed just 1.6% higher on the day of release of this trading statement, reflecting the extent to which high growth is already priced into the shares.
Vodacom is close to the finish line with the Maziv deal (JSE: VOD | JSE: REM)
There’s one major approval to go
After such a long and painful battle to get this deal across the line (the first SENS announcement was in November 2021!), Vodacom and Remgro are nearly there with the fibre deal. Although this deal is certainly important for Remgro, it’s even more crucial for Vodacom as they look for new sources of growth in South Africa.
The Competition Appeal Court has approved the deal based on the revised conditions that the parties worked on with the Competition Commission. Although this was expected, it’s always good to see official notification come through.
The significant remaining hurdle is now unconditional approval of the transaction by ICASA. Given that ICASA gave a conditional approval back in 2022, it’s hard to imagine a world in which this final milestone isn’t achieved timeously.
Nibbles:
- Director dealings:
- A director of Famous Brands (JSE: FBH) sold shares worth R11.6 million through the exercise of a put option that was part of a collar hedge entered into in August 2023. This is a common structure when a director is using shares as security against a loan from a bank. The share price has struggled to show a clear positive trajectory and is actually trading at very similar levels to what we saw when the collar was entered into!
- Through the acquisition of a private company that holds shares in Collins Property Group (JSE: CPP), Christo Wiese’s Titan Premier Investments acquired almost R9 million worth of shares in the company.
- The founder and CEO of Datatec (JSE: DTC) bought shares worth R5.6 million.
- An associate of a non-executive director of The Foschini Group (JSE: TFG) bought shares worth R163k.
- A director of Renergen’s major subsidiary (JSE: REN) sold shares worth R75k.
- With the Primary Health Properties (JSE: PHP) offer to Assura (JSE: AHR) shareholders having been largely finalised (it is still open for acceptance), Primary Heath Properties now has a controlling stake of 62.93% in Assura.
- MC Mining (JSE: MCZ) announced that open pit mining at the flagship Makhado steelmaking hard coking coal project in Limpopo has commenced. They are also constructing a coal plant that is on schedule for commissioning by year-end 2025. Importantly, other key infrastructure at the mine is on schedule. The share price closed 12.8% higher off the back of this update.
- There is very little liquidity in South Ocean Holdings (JSE: SOH) stock, so the latest trading statement only gets a mention down here. Perhaps that’s just as well, as the company has swung sharply from a profit to a loss. For the six months to June 2025, they expect a headline loss per share of -15.20 cents vs. HEPS of 21.50 cents in the comparable period. Detailed results will be released on 20 August.
- The sad and sorry tale of Murray & Roberts (JSE: MUR) is nearly over. A creditor of the company has instituted liquidation proceedings against the company and this application will be unopposed. Although the major underlying businesses will continue as they were acquired by a buyer who saw the opportunity in business rescue, this liquidation will bring an end to the listed holding company.
