British American Tobacco gives an updated view on performance (JSE: BTI)

The Chair’s address at the AGM flags a potentially disappointing year ahead

If you are seeking love in this world, then be sure to find someone who looks at you the way ESG consultants look at British American Tobacco. The company dedicates incredible resources and creativity to coming up with fancy terms to make it sound like they are doing good things in the world.

In reality, it’s a pretty simple investment thesis: people buy the stock because the underlying consumers are addicted to the products. As “sticky customers” go, these ones are stickier than a toddler at a birthday party.

Of course, in an effort to stay on the right side of regulators and other stakeholders, the company is pushing hard to convince people to transition to arguably less harmful products. Not all regulators are in favour of this, with the company having to lobby in markets like Australia and Brazil.

At the AGM, the Chair’s update gives plenty of underlying details around the research, the products and the initiatives to transition customers. There’s also information around the financial outlook, so I’ll focus there instead.

The mid-term growth algorithm at British American Tobacco looks like this: 3% – 5% revenue growth, 4% – 6% adjusted profit from operations growth, 5% – 8% adjusted diluted EPS growth. This is a single-digit sport, measured in hard currency.

Due to issues in the APMEA region and the investment required in new products, they expect to be at the lower end of the guided ranges in FY26. They’ve also flagged that the first half won’t be great, with “profit delivery to remain second-half weighted” based on the timing of investment initiatives and cost saving programmes.

They’ve also indicated a forex headwind of 2% – 3% on adjusted diluted EPS.

Although medium-term guidance is unchanged, it sounds like 2026 is going to be a disappointment for investors – particularly the interim results. With the share price up 18% over 12 months, it’s going to be interesting to see where it goes over the remainder of 2026.

What are your views on this stock?

A last-minute change to the Mahube Infrastructure scheme (JSE: MHB)

Presumably the scheme was on track to fail, as the price has now been raised

Here’s an unusual one for you!

Mahube Infrastructure released a circular back in March that set out a scheme of arrangement at R5.50 per share. The offeror is Sustent Holdings.

Mahube had spent much of 2025 languishing below R4.00 per share, with the share price moving into the higher range based on cautionary announcements and then the firm deal.

The pricing of R5.50 reflected a meaty premium to the price before this deal became a reality, but it was still below the fair value range of R6.42 to R6.72 put forward by the independent expert. This means it was assessed to be “unfair but reasonable” to Mahube shareholders.

Unfair deals still regularly go through on the JSE, but this one is more nuanced.

The meeting that was scheduled for 15 April was postponed to 11 May. The price was increased from R5.50 per share to R6.00 per share. There are also no adjustments being made to the price anymore for dividends.

You won’t see stuff like this every day. Major shareholders are presumably digging in their heels and pushing for a price that is closer to the fair value range.

Optasia has suffered a setback in Nigeria (JSE: OPA)

This will hopefully be rectified quickly

As a reminder of the risks of operating in frontier markets, Optasia announced that the provision of airtime credit services in partnership with a mobile network operator in Nigeria has been suspended.

This appears to be a step taken by the operator in connection with the implementation of recent regulations.

What does this actually mean for Optasia?

Well, they “don’t expect this matter to have a material impact on its financial position” despite airtime credit services in Nigeria being 14% of Optasia group revenue in FY25.

How is it possible for that number to not be material?

Firstly, if they have multiple partners in Nigeria, then that builds in some diversification. Secondly, if this is only a temporary issue that can be resolved quickly, then the percentage impact will be much smaller than the annual contribution to revenue would suggest.

Those are two very big “ifs”.

More drilling results from Southern Palladium (JSE: SDL)

They are making progress on their Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS)

Southern Palladium has released results of metallurgical test work from the Bengwenyama PGM project. This is where things become very technical, with only geologists and mining engineers having any idea what’s going on here!

I don’t know what a coarser grind spiral feed is, but I’m happy that using this approach will lead to chromite concentrate recoveries of 65% instead of the 30% assumed in the Optimised Pre-Feasibility Study.

It’s also nice to see that Dense Media Separation circuits will be useful. Frankly, that sounds like a spam filter I wish I could add to my social media feed. There’s a lot of dense media out there.

These results are being incorporated into the work being done for the Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) on plant design and metrics.

Nibbles:

• Director dealings:
  • The CFO and company secretary of Sun International (JSE: SUI) sold shares worth over R4.8 million in total. Although a portion of this was related to tax, the majority of it was not.

• Africa Bitcoin Corporation (JSE: BAC) announced that Bambanani Family Group, in which they have a 31% direct interest, lost over R6 million for the year ended February 2026. There were grand plans here around a children’s entertainment concept, but things just haven’t worked out at all. The writing has been on the wall for a while, as financial performance has been poor in recent years. Bambanani Melville will be closed and Bambanani Bedfordview will continue with a reduced staff compliment. Bamba’s Kitchen will temporarily move to Melville while that property is in the process of being sold. Bambanani at Home will launch as a D2C offering with a recurring family food system, which sounds like a very hard way to make money. It’s always very sad when small businesses don’t make it.

• In an example of a highly depressing livestream, Tongaat Hulett (JSE: TON) shared a link on SENS for those who want to watch the provisional liquidation application play out in the Durban High Court at 9:30am on Thursday morning. Think I’ll stick to Netflix, personally.