Mr Price has entered into a transaction agreement to acquire 100% of European value retailer NKD from private equity parties Fliegendes Pferd Midco, a UK company holding 98.22% and Fliegendes Pferd MEP, a German general partner holding 1.78%. Mr Price will pay a base purchase price of €415 million (R8,23 billion) subject to a maximum of €487 million (R9,66 billion), which will be settled by way of cash and debt. The deal, a category 2 transaction, is expected to close during Q2 2026.
Capitec Bank is to acquire 100% of Walletdoc, a local fintech providing scalable, innovative payment gateway solutions for merchants, including online and in-app payments, digital wallets, Instant EFT, payment links and real-time payouts. For Capitec, the acquisition is strategic, reinforcing its ongoing commitment to lower the cost of payments, broaden access to digital financial services, and promote local financial inclusion. Capitec will pay up to R400 million for the business.
Aligned with the Group’s strategic direction to simplify its portfolio by sharpening its focus on priority categories with sustainable growth potential, Libstar has sold its fresh mushroom operations. It has however retained the Denny brand which it has licensed to the purchaser for the use in the fresh mushroom category and will continue to produce and market its value-added Denny branded products. Libstar expects to report a loss on sale before tax of its mushroom operations in the annual financial results for the year ended 31 December 2025 of between R45 million and R55 million.
Special purpose vehicle Sustent Holdings, backed by funds managed by Mergence Investment Managers and Creation Capital, has made an offer to shareholders to acquire and delist Mahube Infrastructure. For shareholders of this illiquid stock, which trades at c.40% discount to its NAV, it provides an exit. Shareholders can decide to remain in the unlisted entity or accept the R5.50 offer per share. As a delisted entity, Mahube could be positioned as a player for private equity investments in large-scale infrastructure assets in South Africa.
In a move to monetise its infrastructure assets, BHP has agreed to a deal which will see Global Infrastructure Partners (BlackRock) take a 49% stake in BHP’s Western Australian Iron Ore (WAIO)’s inland power network. GIP will provide US$2 billion in funding for the stake. BHP will pay the entity a tariff linked to BHP’s share of WAIO’s inland power over a 25-year period.
The finalisation of the take-private of Curro by the Jannie Mouton Stigting remains subject to the fulfilment of certain suspensive conditions. The parties are waiting for confirmation of the dates of the Tribunal’s approval process.
This week both Anglo American and Teck shareholders voted in favour of the proposed merger. The completion of the merger remains subject to a number of regulatory approvals.
Unlisted Companies
Lead investor Secha Capital in conjunction with 27four and Shade Tree Capital have invested into Barracuda Holdings, a South African electronics manufacturing services business. The new partnership will position Barracuda for its next growth phase. Financial details were not disclosed.
VEA Capital Partners, a private-investment company, has announced a strategic partnership with Freedom of Movement, the local lifestyle brand known for its leather goods, apparel and accessories. The alliance will scale the brand’s retail footprint, strengthen manufacturing capacity and introduce new product categories. Financial details of the transaction were undisclosed.
British American Tobacco (BAT) raised c.£315 million from the sale of 187,5 million ITC Hotels shares (9% stake) in an accelerated bookbuild. The proceeds will be used to reduce debt. Following the transaction, BAT retains a 6.3% shareholding in ITC Hotels.
Store-Age Property REIT has successfully closed its equity raise of R500 million in an accelerated bookbuild which was three times oversubscribed. 27,932,961 new shares were placed at an issue price of R17.90 per share. The issue price represents a discount of 0.7% to the 30-day VWAP as at 4 December 2025. The proceeds of the equity raise will be applied to support the company’s 2030 Property Strategy
Datatec will issue 4,197,683 shares to shareholders receiving the scrip dividend option in lieu of a final cash dividend, resulting in a capitalisation of the distributable retained profits in the company of R300,16 million.
Copper 360 has raised R400 million with 329,315,130 claw-back and rights offer shares subscribed for, representing 63.3% of the Rights Offer. The underwriters picked up the slack ensuring a successful raise. Confirmation of the successful Squeeze-Out by Canal+ of the remaining ordinary shares in MultiChoice paved the way for its delisting from the JSE and A2x on 10 December 2025.
Safari Investments RSA will implement its Clean Out Distribution of R6.18 per share on 19 December, following which the company will delist from the JSE on 23 December 2025.
Conduit Capital which has been suspended from trading for more than three years will have its listing removed by the JSE on 19 December 2025. Shareholders will remain invested in an unlisted company. This week the following companies announced the repurchase of shares:
During the period 29 September to 9 December 2025, Hosken Consolidated Investments repurchased 4,862,760 shares at an average price of R133.11 for a total of R647,26 million. The repurchase was funded from available cash resources and shares will be held as treasury shares.
Investec Ltd has announced it will repurchase some of the non-redeemable, non-cumulative, non-participating preference shares. The repurchase will commence on 11 December 2023 with shares repurchased cancelled, reverting back to an authorised but unissued share capital status.
On March 6, 2025, Ninety One plc announced that it would undertake a repurchase programme of up to £30 million. The shares will be purchased on the open market and cancelled to reduce the Company’s ordinary share capital. This week the company repurchased a further 288,965 ordinary shares at an average price 208 pence for an aggregate £602,132.
In October 2024, Anheuser-Busch InBev announced a US$2 billion share buy-back programme to be executed within the next 12 months which will result in the repurchase of c.31,7 million shares. The shares acquired will be kept as treasury shares to fulfil future share delivery commitments under the group’s stock ownership plans. During the period 1 to 5 December 2025, the group repurchased 1,155,247 shares for €61,37 million.
On 19 February 2025, Glencore announced the commencement of a new US$1 billion share buyback programme, with the intended completion by the time of the Group’s interim results announcement in August 2025. This week the company repurchased 6,400,000 shares at an average price per share of £3.76 for an aggregate £24,08 million.
South32 continued with its US$200 million repurchase programme announced in August 2024. The shares will be repurchased over the period 12 September 2025 to 11 September 2026. This week 1,050,115 shares were repurchased for an aggregate cost of A$3,63 million.
In May 2025, British American Tobacco (BAT) extended its share buyback programme by a further £200 million, taking the total amount to be repurchased by 31 December 2025 to £1,1 billion. In a trading update this week BAT increased the buy-back programme by a further £1.3 billion for 2026. The shares will be cancelled. This week the company repurchased a further 522,749 shares at an average price of £42.31 per share for an aggregate £2,25 million.
During the period 1 to 5 December 2025, Prosus repurchased a further 2,668,285 Prosus shares for an aggregate €140,68 million and Naspers, a further 870,370 Naspers shares for a total consideration of R925,85 million.
Three companies issued or withdrew a cautionary notice: RMH, Mahube Infrastructure and Libstar.
Frigoglass Group has entered into an agreement to sell its entire shareholding in Frigoinvest Nigeria Holdings B.V., the holding company of its Nigerian Glass business (including Beta Glass plc and Frigoglass Industries Nigeria Limited), which comprise the Group’s glass container, plastic crates, and metal crowns manufacturing activities for a consideration of up to €100 million, to Helios Investment Partners. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2026.
Safaricom Plc announced the results of its Tranche 1 Note issue under its Medium Term Programme of up to KES40 billion. The teleco had looked to raise KES15 billion in this first tranche, but the offer achieved a 275.7% subscription rate. Due to the strong market reaction to the offer, Safaricom exercised the KES5 billion greenshoe option, thereby increasing Tranche 1 to KES20 billion.
Helios Investment Partners and Fipar-Holding, a subsidiary of CDG Invest, announced the creation of 3MDC, a new digital infrastructure platform. The platform aims to accelerate Morocco’s digital transformation and strengthen its position as a regional technology hub. The new platform brings together Maroc Datacenter (MDC), Munisys, and Medasys, three of Morocco’s most established players in cloud, data, cybersecurity and digital services. Their combination creates a unique, fully integrated hybrid-cloud platform serving enterprise and public-sector clients across Morocco and Southern Europe.
Sahel Capital’s Social Enterprise Fund for Agriculture in Africa (SEFAA) has approved an additional US$800,000 financing facility for Benin’s MM LEKKER. This follows a first US$400,000 working capital loan provided in March. Headquartered in Abomey-Calavi, MM Lekker plays a pivotal role in transforming the regional agricultural trade landscape. The company specializes in sourcing and selling soybeans, shea nuts, and cashew nuts to both local and international markets.
Eos Capital announced the successful exit of Allegrow Fund’s investment in Erongo Medical Group (EMG). The exit represents Eos Capital’s first realised exit since inception.
Standard Bank has partnered with Safaricom Telecommunications, Kenya’s largest telecommunications provider, to provide funding of US$138 million as part of investment towards Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia PLC. The financing facilitates Safaricom’s ongoing rollout of digital infrastructure and services in Ethiopia.
Crown Healthcare, a Kenyan medical products distributor, has secured a US$10 million investment from Impact Fund Denmark. Founded in 1998, Crown Healthcare has evolved from a medical devices distributor into a comprehensive healthcare solutions provider with operations spanning Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda. The investment will accelerate Crown Healthcare’s plans for a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility at Tatu City in Kiambu, where the company has committed a total of $40 million to build what it describes as the largest pharmaceutical plant and medical devices manufacturing facility in sub-Saharan Africa. The plant will span 10 acres with a building area of 400,000 square feet and is expected to employ more than 1,000 highly qualified professionals when fully operational.
TotalEnergies has concluded an agreement with Galp to enter as operator in the prolific PEL 83 license, including the Mopane discovery. Under the agreement, TotalEnergies will acquire a 40% operated interest in PEL83 license holding the Mopane discovery, while Galp will acquire a 10% participating interest in PEL56, which includes the Venus discovery, and a 9.39% participating interest in PEL91. TotalEnergies will carry 50% of Galp’s capital expenditures for the exploration and appraisal of the Mopane discovery and the first development on PEL83. The carry will be repaid through 50% of Galp’s future cash flows from the project.
AJN Resources announced that it has entered into a non-binding term sheet with Amani Consulting SARL, Giro Goldfields SARL and Mabanga Mining SARL pursuant to which AJN can acquire a 55% indirect interest in the Giro Gold Project which comprises two exploitation permits, PE 5046 and PE 5049, that cover a surface area of about 497km² and lies within the Kilo Moto Greenstone Belt in the Haute-Uele Province in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), about 35km west of the Kibali Mine. The deal will be concluded through the issuance of 250,000,000 common AJN shares to Amani Consulting. AJN will be granted an option to acquire the remaining 10% interest held by Amani Consulting in Giro Goldfields by either paying US$30 million to Amani Consulting within 12 months of the Closing or paying $50 million to Amani Consulting within 24 months of the Closing.
In terms of section 36(1)(d) of the Companies Act, No 71 of 2008 (Companies Act), the creation of “blank shares” in a company’s memorandum of incorporation (MOI) is not unusual. However, practical and legal uncertainties often arise in respect of the timing of the determination of the associated preferences, rights, limitations or other terms of those shares, the issuance of the shares, and the filing of the amendment to the MOI with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC).
Relevant provisions
S36(1)(d) of the Companies Act provides that the MOI may set out a class of shares which does not specify the associated preferences, rights, limitations or other terms of that class (Share Terms). The section empowers the board of the company to determine the Share Terms, and states that the shares must not be issued until the board has made such determination.
In terms of s36(4), if the board acts in terms of s36(1)(d), it is required to file a Notice of Amendment of its MOI with CIPC, which sets out the changes effected by the board (Board Amendment Notice). We also see that this constitutes an amendment of the MOI by the board in s16(1)(b) of the Companies Act.
An amendment to a MOI, as set out in s16(9)(b) of the Companies Act, takes effect (i) 10 business days after receipt of the Notice of Amendment by CIPC, unless endorsed or rejected with reasons by CIPC prior to the expiry of such period; or (ii) such later date, if any, as set out in the Notice.
Analysis of relevant provisions
Once a board has determined the Share Terms, the question often arises as to when such shares can be issued. Given that the most common habitat in which blank shares are encountered is the preference share funding environment, more often than not, time is of the absolute essence, and every day counts. Particularly, the question is whether:–
• these shares can only be validly issued after the Board Amendment Notice has been “registered” by CIPC; or
• the company is able to proceed forthwith with the issuance of the shares after the board resolution has been passed, and only thereafter file the Board Amendment Notice with CIPC.
The question has become even more important and relevant pursuant to the Companies Act amendments which took effect in December last year. Those amendments effectively clarify that CIPC performs a similar reviewing and registration role which it had under the previous Companies Act – it now has 10 business days within which to accept or reject the resolution. A rejection can sometimes occur on extremely technical, administrative grounds, or due to an inadvertent mismatch between the company’s and CIPC’s respective records of what the share capital of the company is (there could be historical issues in this regard). This makes it vitally important to know when exactly the parties can go ahead and close the section 36(1)(d) issuance.
The Companies Act is regrettably ambiguous when it comes to addressing this question. A strong argument exists that the company is able to issue the shares once the Share Terms have been determined by the board, with an ex post facto CIPC filing. This argument is based on the grounds discussed below.
S16(9)(b)(i) of the Companies Act refers to an amendment of a company’s MOI taking effect “after receipt of the Notice”. Considering s16 of the Companies Act as a whole, we note the Notice of Amendment is referred to in s16(7) and 16(9) only. S16(7)(b) of the Companies Act refers to the filing of a Notice of Amendment if a new MOI will substitute the existing MOI in terms of s16(5)(a), or the existing MOI is altered in terms of s16(5)(b). When we consider s16(5), we see that this section refers to amendments that were effected under s16(1)(c), which requires a special resolution of the shareholders, and not s16(1)(b), which deals with a board amendment. Consequently, s16 does not deal with the filing of the Board Amendment Notice where the MOI was amended by way of board resolution. Thus, a textual argument (albeit a tenuous one) may be made that (i) s16(9) only deals with the filing of a Notice of Amendment for amendments in terms of s16(1)(c) (special resolutions of shareholders), and that (ii) s36(4) is a different procedure that applies for amendments by the board as contemplated in s36(3).
Consideration of the language in s36(4) of the Companies Act, specifically that the Board Amendment Notice must set out “the changes effected by the board”, implies that once the board resolution to determine the Share Terms is passed, the changes to the MOI are in law, “effected”. Therefore, the filing of the Board Amendment Notice is merely a formality for record purposes – much like the return a company files with CIPC, recording changes to its directorship. From a contextual and purposive perspective, this interpretation is also logical as the board’s powers are limited to an amendment which relates only to share capital, with one of the obvious purposes of enabling the company to raise equity finance. Companies would normally require equity finance to be raised as quickly as possible, and without being delayed by CIPC’s processes. Therefore, given the context and purpose of s36(3) of the Companies Act, it is sensible and businesslike to interpret s36(4) as allowing the board to issue shares immediately upon determining the Share Terms.
The point above also garners support from s36(1)(d)(iii) of the Companies Act, which prohibits the issuance of the shares until the board has determined the Share Terms. This section does not require that the determination by the board be filed with CIPC and, thus, the only requirement prior to issuance of these shares is that the Share Terms be determined by the board.
However, it must be noted that regulation 15(3) of the Companies Regulations, 2011 requires the Notice to be filed together with any required supporting documentation and the filing fee within 10 business days after an amendment to the MOI has been effected in any manner contemplated in s16(1) of the Companies Act. As this regulation covers s16(1)(b) as well, the Notice with the board resolution which determines the Share Terms should be filed with CIPC within the prescribed time period.
Conclusion
S36(1)(d) of the Companies Act has given companies the flexibility to create “blank shares”. However, the Companies Act remains ambiguous with regard to the timing of the determination of the Share Terms, the issuance of the shares, and the filing of the MOI amendment with CIPC. While a strong case exists for the issuance of the shares the moment that the board determines the Share Terms, to mitigate any potential legal and compliance risks, we recommend that companies proceed with caution and only issue such shares after they have “registered” the board resolution with CIPC. Alternatively, if the parties really cannot wait, then the special resolution of the shareholders approving the initial MOI amendment should, in anticipation, include a specific reference to s38(2) which allows the retroactive authorisation of shares that were issued before their creation in law.
Ian Hayes is Practice Head and Storm Arends is an Associate in Corporate & Commercial | Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr
This article first appeared in DealMakers, SA’s quarterly M&A publication.
BALANCING GEOPOLITICS, REGIONAL INTEGRATION AND VALUE ADDITION
As the global economy undergoes a profound transformation towards low-carbon energy systems and digital technologies, critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt, platinum group metals (PGMs), rare earth elements (REEs) and graphite have emerged as key enablers of this transition. These minerals underpin everything from electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy to semiconductors and hydrogen fuel systems.
Rising demand has elevated these minerals from mere commodities to strategic assets that define national security, industrial competitiveness and geopolitical alignment. The Southern African Development Community (SADC), richly endowed with many of these resources, finds itself at the epicentre of this global shift.
While Southern Africa’s mineral wealth presents a generational opportunity, resource abundance alone does not guarantee economic transformation. To fully leverage its position, the region must transition from being a raw material supplier to a strategic industrial partner, anchored in coherent policies, regional cooperation and value chain development.
THE GLOBAL RACE FOR CRITICAL MINERALS: Opportunity and risk
Southern Africa’s strategic positioning must be understood within the broader context of intensifying global competition over critical mineral supply chains. China’s dominance in processing key inputs, particularly rare earths, lithium and graphite, has prompted countries like the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) to ‘de-risk’ their supply chains by diversifying sources. This has translated into a wave of new trade policies, strategic partnerships and investment frameworks increasingly focused on Africa.
Bilateralism and fragmentation risks
The US, for example, has signed separate critical minerals agree-ments with Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), marking a shift from multilateral co-operation to bi- lateral engagement. While these partnerships signal increased interest in the region, they also risk fragmenting regional cohesion. Country-by-country deals reduce the collective bargaining power of African nations and complicate efforts to coordinate regional industrial strategies, particularly in downstream beneficiation and infrastructure planning.
The rise of resource nationalism
At the same time, growing resource nationalism across the Global South, manifested through export restrictions, local content mandates and beneficiation requirements, signals a shift in approach. African countries increasingly recognise that controlling their mineral endowments and capturing more value domestically is not only a matter of economic benefit, but also essential to long-term development and strategic autonomy.
DEFINING CRITICALITY: A continental mosaic of priorities
Despite the shared importance of critical minerals, SADC countries define ‘criticality’ differently, reflecting diverse economic structures, industrial capacities and development goals. For instance, South Africa prioritises PGMs, manganese, vanadium and iron ore due to their economic contributions, while placing less emphasis on lithium and copper. Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia, in contrast, consider lithium, copper and rare earths as top priorities.
This lack of standardisation presents a challenge for regional alignment. Moreover, while producer countries focus on domestic benefits like jobs, revenues and industrialisation, consumer countries define criticality based on supply chain security, scarcity and import risks.
A shared, science-based and forward-looking regional framework is therefore essential. It must respect national priorities, while aligning with global trends in clean energy, digital infrastructure and advanced manufacturing. This framework should also promote inclusive industrial growth, especially by integrating artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), which often plays an outsized role in supplying niche minerals.
NATIONAL STRATEGIES IN MOTION: Parallel paths, shared aspirations
Across SADC, countries are advancing domestic strategies to increase value capture from critical minerals.
Zimbabwe has implemented a phased approach to restricting lithium exports, beginning with a ban on raw ore and extending to a planned ban on lithium concentrate exports by 2027, to promote domestic value addition and battery-related manufacturing.
Namibia is enhancing rare earth processing capacity, supported by strategic partnerships and investment facilitation from the EU.
Zambia and the DRC are collaborating to develop copper and EV battery value chains, supported by US-backed agreements and infrastructure initiatives, most notably the Lobito Corridor railway project.
Botswana is diversifying beyond diamonds by developing projects to process minerals like manganese into battery-grade materials, while expanding renewable energy infrastructure to support its clean energy ambitions.
However, these national approaches, while promising, also risk duplicating efforts and diluting investment. Without coordination, multiple countries could build similar infrastructure (e.g. smelters, refineries), leading to suboptimal returns and missed synergies.
There is an urgent need for value chain rationalisation. Instead of each country building all components of the beneficiation chain, the region should strategically allocate functions across borders, based on competitive advantage. For example, Botswana – with its central location, access to the Kalahari Copper Belt, and vast salt pans – could serve as a processing and logistics hub, linking copper from Zambia and lithium from Zimbabwe.
Such coordination could form the foundation of a regional industrial strategy that maximises shared benefits while avoiding inefficient competition. Examples such as regional gold refining in Germiston (which services multiple SADC states under existing Rules of Origin provisions) illustrate that practical cross-border beneficiation is possible when regulatory frameworks are aligned and infrastructure is leveraged.
INFRASTRUCTURE AND INTEGRATION: Building the backbone of value chains
Value chain coordination cannot occur in isolation; it must be supported by physical and regulatory infrastructure. This includes transport, energy, water and digital systems. Equally important are trade-enabling legal instruments such as the SADC and AfCFTA Rules of Origin, which, through provisions like ‘cumulation’, allow components sourced across member states to be treated as local inputs, facilitating integrated processing and manufacturing.
Projects like the Lobito Corridor, linking the DRC and Zambia to Angola’s ports, are a positive step. But more corridors, such as Nacala, Walvis Bay and Beira, are needed. These routes should not merely facilitate mineral exports, but evolve into industrial development corridors, fostering downstream beneficiation and local economic ecosystems along their paths.
Botswana, strategically located at the crossroads of Southern and Central Africa, could emerge as a regional transport and processing hub. With deliberate planning, corridors can become economic arteries, enabling integrated clusters of processing, manufacturing and technology development, ranging from battery assembly to hydrogen electrolyser production.
Crucially, these corridors must complement rather than compete. Each offers unique advantages based on geography, resource type and trade routes. A coordinated approach would ensure that corridor development supports regional scale and resilience, rather than creating redundant infrastructure.
THE COST OF FRAGMENTATION: Missed opportunities and market failure
The cost of failing to act collectively is significant, as illustrated by several examples:
Despite Southern Africa’s global dominance in platinum, the industry remains largely a price taker, exporting predominantly unrefined concentrate. This persists even as the region leads in fuel cell research and development, missing opportunities to capture greater value through downstream processing.
Zimbabwe exports significant volumes of spodumene concentrate, a lithium precursor, but without domestic battery manufacturing capacity, much of the economic value is realised offshore, limiting local industrial development and job creation.
Botswana hosts Africa’s largest salt pan system, the Makgadikgadi Pans, which is under active exploration for lithium brines. However, the country currently lacks operational lithium extraction or value addition facilities, leaving it disconnected from the regional lithium and EV battery value chains.
Without coordinated, integrated regional planning, Southern Africa remains vulnerable to commodity price volatility, and reliant on foreign actors for downstream processing and value addition. These structural inefficiencies constrain economic growth and undermine the region’s capacity to influence and benefit from global mineral supply chains.
VALUE ADDITION: Transforming mineral potential into industrial power
To change this trajectory, beneficiation must be at the heart of the region’s strategy. With nearly 70% of global PGMs sourced from South Africa and Zimbabwe, SADC holds sufficient market power to demand downstream investment, just as Indonesia did with nickel.
The growing prominence of the hydrogen economy enhances this leverage, given the importance of PGMs in fuel cells and electrolysers. Regional efforts to develop R&D capabilities, supply chain infrastructure and technology transfer should focus on moving beyond raw exports to high-value industrial outputs.
Countries are already moving in this direction:
Zimbabwe is implementing a beneficiation roadmap for lithium and chrome.
Namibia is attracting REE and hydrogen investment.
Botswana is expanding processing beyond diamonds.
Zambia and the DRC are deepening cross-border copper value chains.
Yet energy constraints, limited capital and weak digital infrastructure remain major bottlenecks. Among all infrastructure categories, power access and affordability stand out as the most pressing and potentially transformative investment areas.
ENABLING INVESTMENT THROUGH LEGAL COHERENCE AND ESG ALIGNMENT
The legal landscape across SADC is evolving, with countries updating mining codes, export regimes and local content rules. However, the lack of harmonisation remains a source of uncertainty and delays, particularly for junior and ESG-focused investors.
Existing instruments like the SADC Protocol on Trade in Goods and its Rules of Origin (RoO) provide preferential access to intra-regional markets, often recognising minerals as wholly originating goods. Value-added products also qualify, provided they meet moderate RoO thresholds. The AfCFTA Protocol on Trade in Goods offers a continental framework closely aligned with SADC’s RoO principles and includes provisions for cumulation, broadening opportunities for cross-border beneficiation chains.
Establishing a regional engagement platform within SADC could facilitate legal alignment, streamline permitting, and promote coordinated investment planning, enhancing the region’s appeal to responsible investors while respecting national sovereignty.
Equally critical is adherence to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards, now essential for access to global markets. Embedding digital traceability, environmental certification and community inclusion into policy and practice is vital. Formalising ASM, ensuring transparent licensing, and introducing ESG incentives can strengthen the region’s reputation and competitiveness.
Together, these trade instruments create important enablers for cross-border industrialisation. The key challenge now is to translate these frameworks from legal availability into practical accessibility through coordinated customs enforcement, institutional capacity building, and increased awareness among public and private stakeholders.
GLOBAL ALIGNMENT: SADC’s strategic moment on the world stage
The launch of the G7 Critical Minerals Action Plan in 2025 presents a timely opportunity for Southern Africa to align its development priorities with growing global demand for responsibly sourced critical minerals. Many of the plan’s key focus areas – such as supporting local beneficiation, financing infrastructure projects, and harmonising ESG practices – already feature prominently in SADC’s regional strategies. This alignment positions the region to leverage global momentum to build resilient and transparent mineral supply chains.
A particularly important aspect of the G7 plan is its recognition of Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM), which remains a vital source of niche, high-value minerals, and a major employer across Africa. By formalising ASM, the region will not only improve livelihoods; it will increase transparency and address environmental and social challenges associated with informal mining activities.
To capitalise on global trends, SADC countries should actively engage with international initiatives that support critical mineral development and sustainable infrastructure investment, such as the:
Minerals Security Partnership, an international coalition focused on responsible sourcing and supply chain resilience.
Canada-led Critical Minerals Production Alliance, emphasising investment collaboration.
EU–Africa Global Gateway, the EU’s flagship infrastructure programme with a focus on green minerals and energy transition partnerships.
Green Hydrogen Alliance, promoting global hydrogen development, a sector where Southern Africa’s abundant renewable resources and mineral wealth could play a strategic role.
By deepening engagement with these platforms, SADC can strengthen its position globally, attract responsible investment, and ensure that its critical minerals contribute meaningfully to both local development and the global clean energy transition.
From resource custodians to strategic co-creators
The global transition to green energy, digitalisation and strategic autonomy has placed critical minerals at the heart of economic and geopolitical realignment. With its vast mineral wealth, Southern Africa is no longer a peripheral player, but a pivotal force shaping global supply chains.
The region’s success hinges on collective, strategic action. The choice is clear: remain fragmented exporters of raw ore, or unite as industrial partners driving downstream industries, innovation and sustainable growth.
This transformation demands five core shifts:
From bilateral deals to coordinated regional strategy: SADC must strengthen collective bargaining through integrated policies and value chain coordination.
From export dependency to onshore value addition: Beneficiation and manufacturing must move from ambition to reality, supported by competitive infrastructure and energy access.
From siloed infrastructure to interconnected corridors: Strategic transport corridors like Lobito, Nacala and Walvis Bay should evolve into multi-country industrial belts, enabling regional value chains.
From legal complexity to investor confidence: Harmonised mining, energy and ESG frameworks will reduce barriers, attract finance, and empower junior miners and ASM actors.
From marginal voices to global rule-shapers: Active engagement in platforms like the G7 Minerals Security Partnership and African Union strategies is essential to embed Africa’s interests in the green transition.
Ultimately, vision must be matched by execution. Political will, institutional capacity and regional trust are vital. If SADC acts with unity and urgency, it can move beyond benefiting from the critical minerals boom to leading it.
Nomsa Mbere is a Partner | Webber Wentzel
This article first appeared in DealMakers AFRICA, the continent’s quarterly M&A publication.
Cell C has been on quite the adventure in its efforts to carve out a sustainable competitive position. The telcos space can be brutal, with historically high levels of capital investment required to compete.
This has thankfully changed, with Cell C having created a profitable business model that goes well beyond the MVNO operations that the market tends to focus on.
In this podcast, CEO Jorge Mendes joined me to explain Cell C’s business and how they plan to win across key verticals like Prepaid and Postpaid in addition to the exciting MVNO and other opportunities. We talked about why the turnaround is behind them and how Cell C plans to grow into the future.
As a separately listed company with a much simpler balance sheet, Cell C is on the radar of investors and worth understanding in more detail. This podcast is an excellent resource in your research process.
This podcast has been sponsored by Cell C. As always, I was given an opportunity to dig into the strategy and ask my own questions in my quest to learn more. You must always do your own research and speak to a financial advisor before making any decision to invest. This podcast should not be seen as an investment recommendation or an endorsement.
Full Transcript:
The Finance Ghost: Welcome to this episode of the Ghost Stories podcast. Despite the very best efforts of Cloudflare, which took down Riverside, meaning we were scrambling for a solution here, I’m pleased to report that the Cell C technology stack is a whole lot more reliable than Cloudflare (which seems to run almost the entire internet; it’s kind of frightening, actually).
I’m very grateful that it did finally start working, because today I have the opportunity to chat to Cell C CEO, Jorge Mendes. And what a fantastically exciting time to be able to speak to you, Jorge. Obviously, now a separately listed company. I’m sure you’re quite excited about that.
Before I formally say hello to you, I do just want to get one thing out of the way. Obviously, the IPO has closed now – I mean, everyone could have seen the pricing for themselves. But because I’m chatting to you and not to the shareholders who were behind that whole transaction in Cell C, the focus today is on the Cell C business, not on the IPO and the pricing and all the stuff that the bankers would have worked on. It’s just an unhelpful conversation.
So, I’m personally very keen to chat to you about the Cell C business itself, and the market will figure out over time what the shares should be worth, of course. That’s the magic of a market. So, looking forward to that.
Jorge, welcome to the show! Thank you for making time for this. I’m keen to learn more.
Jorge Mendes: Thank you very much! Thank you for having me here. A great phase in our business, lots of excitement. I think we’re well-positioned for what we call ‘the telco of the future’. Perhaps, during our conversation, I can elaborate on that a little bit more. But, yes, we’re now at the beginning of the new journey.
The Finance Ghost: Absolutely. Yeah, it really is that, actually. Let’s dig into the story here. The Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) operations at Cell C do tend to get all of the focus from investors and from the media, but the reality is there’s actually a lot more to Cell C.
There’s a huge piece of your business that does have some stuff in common with the other telcos – for example, just over 8 million direct subscribers – and I think that part of the business doesn’t really get the attention that it should receive from the market.
So, let’s start with just a lay of the land of how Cell C actually makes its money. Set the scene for us here, for those who aren’t familiar with how the group looks today.
Jorge Mendes: Yeah, thanks very much. It’s a great question and a great starting point, because you’re quite right. I think it’s more than, dare I say, a one-trick pony. We’ve got a very strong set of growth engines.
But before we talk about the growth engines, I think what we’ve done extremely well is we’ve pivoted to a capex-light model. In essence, what that means is we’ve given up the steel structures, the steel towers, and we’ve got a Virtual Radio Access Network (vRAN) arrangement with MTN and with Vodacom. So, very good partners that build great quality infrastructure.
And we do know that the market will go through a level of consolidation as the market matures. We are making the sector a healthier sector by being a very good customer to both MTN and Vodacom, from a roaming point of view. The billions in revenue that they generate from us with a very high, healthy margin, they can reinvest into infrastructure, or simply bank it as profits.
We are a full Mobile Network Operator (MNO). We have our own spectrum, our own core, our own billing systems, our own everything. We’ve just given up the steel towers, and we’ve got the vRAN. So, that helps tremendously.
It also improves things from an ESG point of view, so we really are playing our part in terms of the planet. It doesn’t make sense to have four good base stations next to each other, with four good generators and security guards and diesel, and so on. So, that’s the foundation.
And then we’ve unlocked Multi-Operator Core Network (MOCN) roaming, which allows us to shift traffic between our roaming partners. So, we’ve gone from 5,500 of our own physical base stations to over 28,000, in terms of access to those 28,000 towers.
We really do have the best of the best when it comes to network quality – voice, data – and there are a number of accolades that support that. But more important than the accolades is the experience that our customers and business partners now enjoy in terms of good quality.
So, we get to market with very, very comparable voice quality and data. We’re providing significant revenues to our roaming partners. That creates a healthier sector, and that’s the foundation.
On top of that, we then call ourselves a platform for growth. If I take our engines, we have a Prepaid engine, a Postpaid Consumer engine, an Enterprise engine, and then a Wholesale MVNO engine.
If I take Prepaid, we now have a significant amount of revenue and customers still in Prepaid. We’re growing, so we’re coming off a lower base given our market share. But we’ve got new products, new distribution channels. We’ve got a great quality network.
We rebranded Cell C in August of last year, so we’ve got a brand-new look and feel. We’ve got taglines like “Nothing Should Stop You” and “Switch to See”, which is really an invitation for customers to try our network. All of these ingredients are boding well for making sure that we do grow in Prepaid.
Our consumer Postpaid business. We acquired Comm Equipment Company (CEC), which was a full subsidiary of Blu Label, and that was really postpaid handset financing. So that’s back in the Cell C fold, and we’re running our Postpaid Consumer business end to end.
And again, an introduction of new channels. We integrated into iStore, for example. We were the only network that was not integrated. High-value segment, there.
We’ve got 103 of our own stores. We’ve rebranded and refreshed – with a new look, feel, and experience – 72 of those, just in the last year alone. So, a massive task.
We’ve launched new tariff plans and propositions that are now very favourable in the market. And we’ve changed small things like credit vetting profiles and scoring, so that will be continuous improvement.
And then of course, given the financial constraints that we had in the past and largely that goes away now, we will be in a better position to compete in handset financing, hardware arranging, etcetera, when it comes to Consumer Postpaid.
Our Enterprise business is a small business, but a good growth engine, in terms of percentage growth. We’re partnering very deeply there. We’re not hiring a lot of staff. We’re hiring a handful of key account managers, if you like, and we’ve signed up more than 44 partners.
We’ve got Altron, Nashua and a whole bunch of other players that allow us to get to market with propositions that they need connectivity, or vice versa – where we have the connectivity and they have a solution – and that’s boding very well. So, it’s part of our ethos to partner very deeply.
And then lastly, to your point, you spoke about the MVNO business. The MVNO business has some really strong brands. We’re able to reach those segments very quickly and very effectively, as opposed to trying to do it ourselves by inventing products, marketing, spending time building the awareness and then trying to address it.
The last little piece is that we have a fibre ISP. So, we do still sell fibre – owning the home and family is very much a strategy – but we’re not laying fibre, we’re not laying physical infrastructure. We leave that to the guys who do it best.
The Finance Ghost: Thank you. That does a fabulous job of the lay of the land. That’s exactly my point. There’s way more to Cell C than just the MVNO business, even though that gets so much of the attention in the market.
I really want to try and not take the conversation away from that – because it’s a relatively unique element, and you’ve got such a good market position there – but I think people forget about everything else going on in Cell C, which is a pity.
I actually walked past one of your stores the other day, I think it was in Canal Walk, and it looks really good. Genuinely looks excellent. I love the new colours, etcetera. So, well done!
Jorge Mendes: Thank you.
The Finance Ghost: It looks exciting. It looks like a challenger brand. It looks like it should. It’s edgy, it’s fun, and it’s different.
Jorge Mendes: Yeah, thank you. And what we’ve done is what most people think is very obvious. We asked customers what they like. To be brutally honest, if I have permission to speak truly, I didn’t personally like the colour orange. It’s not about me. We asked the market.
We’ve been around for 24 years. We’ve gone through many phases. We’ve been black, we’ve been red, we’ve been blue – and that’s just the colour and the positioning. And I said, “It’s less about me as the CEO. It’s less about what we feel. It’s absolutely about our customers and partners. What do you like? What don’t you like? What would you like more of? What would you like less of?” And that’s what we’re trying to do.
We’ve looked at the headwinds in the market and said, “How do we address this? If I built another beautiful version of yellow or red, why would a consumer come to me and get the orange version of what already exists?” So, we had to do things differently. Not for the sake of being different, but for giving customers and partners what they really want. And that creates the real disruption.
So, the look and feel of the stores comes from what customers wanted – and I’ve fallen in love with them, quite clearly. Of course, I’m a little bit biased now, but we’ve really tried to take the elements that they’ve asked for – fresh, funky…
I mean, the word ‘howzit’ that greets everybody is just typically South African, across all of the diversity that we’ve got, and that was something that was just synonymous with a greeting. Small, little things like that actually go a long way, because we’ve done some deep research and analytics and listened properly to what customers have to say.
The Finance Ghost: Yeah, I love it. Well done. I think the colours look like something I want to get into and drive on a mountain road, so that works for me. Maybe that’s my own bias coming through, but I really like it. It’s very cool.
Let’s talk to a couple of the growth engines then, as you’ve highlighted. The one is Prepaid, and this is where things got super interesting in the media recently and some of the commentary coming through from the likes of Telkom, MTN.
It’s a very competitive space, obviously. We know that South Africans are extremely cost-sensitive. That’s just the reality of the South African consumer. So, lots of competition in Prepaid.
I’d love to get some comments here (to the extent you can speak about it), just around those Prepaid forces, what you’re really up against there. And to what extent do you face the risk of almost damaging competition, versus competition where you can actually win, and it’s economically lucrative?
Jorge Mendes: Yeah, absolutely. It’s a great question. We want to always add value to the sector. As you get into a more mature level of the sector, then typically what starts happening, the organic growth is not there in the same way that it was in years gone by. So, you end up taking share from one or the other, and you’ve got to reinvent yourself.
And I guess what we’ve done is we’ve said we had too much above-the-line pricing and not enough below-the-line and personalisation. So we’ve changed platforms.
We’ve spent a lot of money. Our capex – we’ve guided between R650 and R800 million in capex. And that’s all customer-facing, so billing systems, CVM platforms, cybersecurity posture that improves the cybersecurity and mitigating risk for customers. We built a new app. We’ve done 72 of the 100 stores – those are refreshed already.
And specifically, back to Prepaid, to your point. We’ve changed platforms in terms of CVM, so personalisation at a customer-level segment of one, and we’ve moved a lot of the above-the-line standard pricing to below-the-line personalised pricing. So that’s the one thing.
Two is we’ve created new distribution channels for inflow growth. So, how do we acquire new customers from different segments? We’ve unlocked different commercials and structures that we didn’t have before, with the Pepkor Group as an example. We’ve got Shoprite as another huge channel where we’ve made some differences. We’ve created six new Wholesale channels that we didn’t have.
We’ve got some call centres, the telesales that we’ve now got on board that also help with some of the migration journeys and uplifting revenue and value-added service sales, etcetera. We’ve enhanced our USSD channel.
We’ve built a new app, so that’s what we call the ‘minimum lovable products’ that we release every kind of month or so. It starts somewhere that’s neat, and customers love, and we just add products every other day and so that’s growing quite nicely.
Then we’ve launched a whole bunch of new products. We’ve got Supa Bonus – three times the value. It’s very simple to understand, nothing complicated. You load with x, and you get 3x that amount in terms of value. That’s boding well.
And again, as I say, it sounds like a small thing, but with very, very good quality of voice and data. The best and the second best, as rated by independent surveys. And that’s very different because two-and-a-half years ago we were fourth, and so you could have to play with price a lot because the quality wasn’t as great.
So, we do believe we’re now at the beginning. We’ve seen a little bit of growth coming through, and I think Telkom has done a fantastic job in being data-led and data-centric in that growth. Credit to Sarame and his team, and Lunga, for the great work that they’ve done over the last 12 quarters.
I think yellow and red are under a little bit of pressure in terms of hanging on to revenue growth, and there’s a bit of decline starting to happen there. That’s largely because they’ve got the biggest shares. And when the smaller players start growing, you normally eat into that share.
So, I have no doubt that the competition will accelerate, but I think we’re quite comfortable that, given the level playing fields now that we have on the quality of voice and data, the amazing distribution channels, our platforms, our capability. And we’ve built an incredible team in a short space of time. We really do have a strong team that understands this quite well. I think we’re very well-positioned for growth in Prepaid.
The Finance Ghost: ‘Minimum lovable products’ is great, I love that. Instead of ‘minimum viable product’. Very cool, that’s going to stay with me. I really enjoy that reference.
Let’s talk Postpaid, and then I’m going to bring it back to MVNOs. Because obviously, Prepaid and Postpaid are so linked, at the end of the day. It’s just a different way of selling connectivity to people. I guess the same is true for MVNOs, but you get what I mean.
So, you talked about handset financing channels, all the new tariff plans and propositions. These are the routes to win in that space. And something in your roadshow documentation for the IPO that I picked up is that Postpaid is an area where you believe you are underrepresented, which basically means you have less market share than you think you should have, as I understand it, which means you have space to grow.
So, do you think that you’ve got the building blocks in place now? The stuff you’ve talked about, the financing, the channels, etcetera. Is that now going to get you to the market share that you think you can get to in Postpaid?
Jorge Mendes: Yeah, absolutely. Again, at the beginning, and I hate to sound repetitive, but we’ve had to fix this business. We’ve had to come from difficult circumstances. We’ve been recapitalised twice, and you can figure that out. When you’re not in great shape, there are a lot of things that don’t happen the way they should happen.
We have now allocated an RFP and awarded an RFP for a Postpaid billing system. We did the Prepaid billing system in time, in budget, and that went live in August of last year. I got cracking on that immediately when I started, which was about two-and-a-half years ago. So we’ve done that, we’ve bedded that down, it’s working beautifully.
We’re now doing the same for Postpaid. That will still be a journey; that’ll be 18 to 24 months. So, the capability that we have today is good, but we want better, and we want to plan for the future. So that’s forward-looking stuff.
What we’ve done in Postpaid, for sure – in my previous life, I actually did the roaming deal between Cell C and Vodacom. At that stage, Cell C had 1.3 million customers on their consumer Postpaid business. Today we have under 800,000, at somewhere around 790,000. So, you can see that that’s been in decline. Had we not started managing that business directly this year (so, the last 8 to 10 months), it would have been even lower than the 790,000. That’s how we were bleeding customers.
So, there are a lot of things that you have to do in order to resolve this. First is the quality of network, again. Second (and this is not in sequence – it’s just the ingredients involved here), you need to have good distribution channels.
We had some good distribution channels. We now have very good distribution channels, and also a unique way of how we gain access to those channels, in terms of the commercial construct and how we finance hardware. We’ve created some interesting stuff that I really think will start unlocking value in the next few months. So this, again, is forward looking.
For example, if you don’t qualify for creditworthiness, you press a button, and you give us access to six months of your bank statements. We have an AI tool that looks at various algorithms and will say, “You are good for R370 between the 14th and the 15th of the month. Do you accept the debit order on that time frame?” And we’ll approve you.
So that’s kind of forward-looking stuff that we think we’ll start adding value to, because Postpaid is really about hardware financing. The value that you get on Prepaid is very good. Hardware financing is what makes it attractive for contracts on consumer, and that’s normally 12, 24, 30 or 36-month contracts.
I do also believe, by the way, that, forward-looking, the banks will do the hardware financing better than the telcos. And I think that, given our relationships with MVNOs that are also significantly in the financial services sector, that relationship will bridge nicely in terms of handset financing at a P&L level. You can do this on-balance sheet and off-balance sheet. We will be exercising both options.
So, we do have a better balance sheet and better liquidity to now range hardware better. And then we have some interesting ideas which I’m not going to share with you because they unfortunately are very competitive. But we’ve looked at the market again differently. So, are customers who are in-contract out of range for us? In other words, is the whole market available as an opportunity to gain share from, or only those that are out of contract? And we’ve come up with some really interesting ideas that say the whole market is available to us. So even those that are in-contract, we have some interesting propositions that say we’ll give you really some serious room for thought around, “Hmm, maybe I should switch to Cell C and see what’s going on there.”
So channels, tariff plans. Obviously, credit vetting profile, liquidity and financial position on hardware ranging, etcetera.
We’ve got some new channels that we didn’t have before – I’ve mentioned iStore, but we’ve also just gone with Incredible and HiFi Corp. Those are new channels. We have our own footprint. And then we’ll look at the physical footprint. So, we could have a situation where a Cell C customer could collect hardware at an FNB Connect or at a Capitec Connect or vice versa. So, we’ll use the full footprint to leverage each other’s capabilities and not just keep them as individual silos.
The Finance Ghost: Very cool. Some exciting stuff coming from orange, so we’ll see what happens there. I like it. And yeah, you’re right. The banks have such a low cost of funding. They are a pretty obvious partner in that space. That’s very cool.
I guess that leads us nicely into the MVNO piece, where obviously you have got these banking partners. And it’s quite interesting, the part of Cell C that actually deals with this whole MVNO piece launched all the way back in 2006, if I’m not mistaken? Which was before the world had the iPhone!
I always reference that 2007 was the first iPhone. I remember, because I was first year varsity and there was like one really lucky kid in the class who had an iPhone brought from overseas. People forget how quickly the world has changed. 18 years of the smartphone. Before that, it was BlackBerrys.
And those who have bearish views on Cell C might point out that, at the end of the day, you’re really the middleman. You’re the switch between telcos and retailers like Shoprite, banks like Capitec.
What is the moat here? Why can’t they just disintermediate you? I hear this a lot when I hear people speaking about Cell C, so let’s deal with the meat of that argument. Now, having set the scene around the rest of Cell C’s offering, why does Capitec have a moat in this MVNO space?
Why can you defend your position – your market-leading position, I might add – there?
Jorge Mendes: It’s a great question. I think it’s a strategy that again requires deep thought and analytics around, “How do you make this successful in a sustainable way?” So, given our market share – that’s one of the ingredients that allows you to go very hard at the segment. If there isn’t significant organic growth, those with the larger market share have the most to lose. That’s the first thing.
And so, in spite of certain articles that may appear or not, I’m quite clear that both my larger competitors do not really want MVNOs. They’ve said as much in interviews. “Too many chefs spoil the mobile broth,” I think has been quoted on the red side. Yellow has said the same, that we could have another Netherlands, and the MVNOs could collapse the market. A correction there is that it was not the MVNOs, but rather the MNOs, that led with unlimited tariff plans. And once you go to unlimited, you can’t price up, so there’s no more value to be extracted. So, there are nuances.
We’re very clear that if we wanted to go after mass retail banking customers, we’d have to create a brand, market the brand, create distribution and all of that, which costs a lot of money. So what we do, rather, is partner very deeply with someone who does it very well.
And so if you look at how the economics work, given our market share of let’s call it ‘roaming traffic’ that we buy and that’s got a certain amount of capacity. If I use that traffic for myself, I add costs like sales, distribution, ongoing revenue commissions, marketing, etcetera. And I get to a contribution margin of x.
If I sell that traffic to my MVNO partners, I remove all of those costs. And because they largely have those costs sunk already into their business, they can get to a similar contribution margin.
Take Cell C. If I sell a Cell C prepaid starter pack, and I make a contribution margin of x, or even an inflow revenue of R30, as an example, I largely make the same contribution margin and inflow revenue from an MVNO partner. So, left pocket, right pocket, no difference economically from a P&L point of view and we have to look at the construct.
When you look at our partners that we have, the following ingredients I do believe will give them a higher probability of success. And that’s probably why some of the MVNOs of the past were not successful. So, very strong brands like Red Bull Mobile, Virgin Mobile, Trace TV – even Lyca Mobile, the world’s largest MVNO – did not succeed in South Africa.
And the reason, in our belief, is the following (and I think we’re more right than wrong): you need a high utility product. So, voice data, banking, electricity, food is a high utility product. I don’t believe a clothing retailer will be very successful in MVNO. I don’t believe a cutlery and crockery retailer will be very successful in MVNO. There’s not enough in the utility of the product that will give you enough of a reason to switch.
So, a high utility product. Physical distribution, you need physical distribution. These guys have all got a massive number of branches. You need digital distribution. So an app of sorts that gives you that reach and the high level of engagement, and preferably the combination of the two.
And then lastly, a customer base. If you have a large customer base, you already have that level of engagement. And when you have those ingredients, your probability of success in a partner like Cell C (because we truly partner, we make it a win-win), there are very interesting commercials for them. We keep them competitive.
And what we do is we kind of reverse engineer the structure. We say, “What would an FNB Connect customer need to have to compete favourably out there? What would a Capitec Connect customer need? A Shoprite Connect customer? An Old Mutual Connect customer? What would a Mr Price Mobile Connect customer need?” And then you reverse engineer the commercials that allow the organisation itself to make a significant amount of revenue. And then, what revenue is acceptable to us? So, it’s a true partnership model that allows us to unlock that.
Why do we have a moat? It’s quite clear that the regulator and the CompCom want more competition. They’ve been trying for years to break up a duopoly that has existed. In the last round of spectrum in ’22, they actually insisted that each MNO have one MVNO that they launch and make successful for a period of three years.
That’s why it feels a little bit like MVNO season. We’re doing it very deliberately and intentionally, and others, dare I say, might be doing it to comply (and so with no real intention of success, but we’ve given it a bash). For us, it’s a very deliberate, intentional strategy.
So that’s the first, the breaking up of competition, which gives you the support of the regulator and of the CompCom.
The second is that, given the pricing that we have and the levels of margin that are acceptable to us – so, I’ve now gone capex-light. I’m only 900 staff on my payroll compared to 4,000, 4,500, 5,000 of other competitors. So I can live with acceptable margins that are fundamentally different, and I can price into a position that’s acceptable to me, with acceptable margins, and still make the MVNO partners very successful in their own right.
We align very deeply on their strategy. So one partner may want the rewards programme, the other partner may want a reduction in costs in data fees, as an example, when customers are using the app. So, that alignment of strategy is very good.
We’re also the only network operator that hasn’t signalled to any of the financial services players that we want to be a financial services player. So the others, strategically, are not aligned because they’re holding up a flashing light that says, “We’re coming for your banking customers! We’re coming to eat your lunch, because we have these financial services products.” Whether they’re MoMo or VodaPay, etcetera. We’re not. We’re partnering deeply, so it’s all lining up.
And then, probably lastly, is that if one of the bigger players did want to go to our MVNOs, they could. They’d have to come in and price right below where we are, and if they did that, then two things would happen.
The first is that they would cannibalise their own revenue fastest. Because today, factually, 10% of the MVNO customers port from Cell C. The other 90% port from all the other networks. So, out of 10 customers, we lose one to ourselves. And as I said earlier, the contribution margin and economics – I’m perfectly okay with that. The other nine are net gainers.
And so it stands to reason that if a yellow or a red wanted to go in this direction, they would lose a significant amount of their own customers to the MVNO, and they would lose their retail revenue. So, it’s a decision they would have to make, to compromise their retail revenue quite significantly in favour of wholesale revenue.
It’s not a bad strategy. I just think it’s one that’s difficult to make, given how much revenue is sitting in this and how much pressure you’ve now seen just on Prepaid alone, in the last couple of quarters in the declining space there. So we really do believe that we have a moat.
So, I said the first thing is that they will erode the retail revenue. The other thing is that it could then, depending on where the price points reach, compromise the wholesale pricing. And if your retail pricing then breaches your wholesale pricing, you have margin squeeze. And then you have, again, competition and regulatory matters that would kick in to say, “Well, this is not the way that things should work.”
So, we really do believe that the way we’ve priced ourselves (and we keep repricing to the MVNOs, to keep them competitive) does not allow the bigger players to come and play in that space, because the cannibalisation of their own revenue is far too high.
The Finance Ghost: Jorge, thank you. That’s super interesting, and you’ve really given me a lot more insight into the MVNO space. Some great points there.
I’d like to talk now about some of the growth prospects for Cell C and some of the drivers of that. So, the one thing you mentioned there, it sounds like there are specific conditions for your partners to work. You need digital distribution, high utility, etcetera. Maybe there’s a limit then to the number of potential partners in South Africa? I guess there is a practical limit.
So the growth drivers there, I guess, would be maybe winning more of those over time, but there’s probably a practical limit to that. So what would help you in South Africa would be overarching macroeconomic growth, right? And the wonderful news is that, at the moment, South Africa is looking better than it has in quite some time.
So I’d like to understand from you, for a few minutes, the big growth drivers. If you could really sit down, what’s the wish list of what you wish was happening to actually hit those growth flywheels that underpin not just your medium-term targets in the IPO documentation, but allow you to even beat those over time?
What would it be? It would be a macro story in South Africa, I’m sure, but what else?
Jorge Mendes: Yeah, absolutely. In my mind, the role of government is to cultivate the land, to make the soil conducive to really good economic growth. So, what’s a little bit more optimistic than in the past is that I think the GNU is delivering a fair amount of competition between ministers. And that’s stacking up quite well. That’s creating a bit of a healthy competition there.
I think Mteto and Dan at Eskom have done an incredible job there to turn around the electricity grid. That was hampering growth, for sure. In the telco space alone, I know there were billions in investment that were going into batteries just to ‘keep the lights on’, so to speak. And that’s wasteful, because nothing else has happened other than just having what you had before. Very, very wasteful.
It has unlocked solar, so I think there is a lot more green energy that will come from that. But I think the energy grid is a very important part. I think the political climate’s better. The fact that we’re off the grey list is fundamentally different, so we’ll be viewed a little bit more seriously. I think those are good things.
There’s still economic pressure, there’s no doubt about it. The unemployment rate is still too high. Education levels are not where they should be, in terms of pass rates and equality and so on.
But I think what’s starting to happen is a lot of movement going into the township economy. You’re seeing fibre players coming up. R5 a day for unlimited Internet access. That is going to unlock economic activity, no doubt about it.
So we want to be in that space, we want to play in that geography all day long. We want to make sure that we participate in inclusion through a digital economy for everyone. We take it too flippantly, sometimes. If you can get someone who for R5 can connect to the internet, suddenly there’s a little bit of a job creation opportunity. Whether it’s from influencing or just putting themselves out there, from a basic painter job or gardening or a car guard today can get paid through a QR code.
These things are starting to change. Shoprite has this programme now, where you buy a QR code inside for R5, you then pay the car guard with it, and they redeem that for groceries. So those kinds of things are starting to add some tremendous value.
When the economic activity has optimism – and I think this is what the Cell C brand has now brought back into the telco space, is hope, optimism, a fresh energy. And I’m not trying to sound like the messiah of the industry. We’re the smallest player; we know our position right now. But we do have lots of hope, lots of opportunity and lots of credibility that’s now come back in.
I think when you put those ingredients together, and you partner deeply with Cell C, we can share in growth, we can share in the aligning of the strategy. And that’s a different approach. It’s not just meant to sound like fancy words.
So, economic outlook is more positive. Conducive environment. That’s looking a lot more optimistic. I think prices will always come down. You want connectivity to become more and more affordable. You’re seeing handset financing, you’re seeing better hardware coming into the country.
So, the availability of a great device that today, if you look at your device, you don’t know if it’s a phone, a calculator, a camera, a diary, a calendar, a trading platform, and the list goes on. It’s an all-in-one that unlocks a lot. We want to be right at the forefront.
And then there’s also a lot of opportunity in enterprise and public sector that we haven’t participated in. I think that’s quite interesting for us. We haven’t played in that space at all.
The Finance Ghost: Yeah, it’s speaking my language 100%. I absolutely share that view with you that access to internet is a game changer. That is the number one thing that marginalised communities desperately need in this country, so that’s excellent. I’d love to see anything in that space.
I’ve only got you for a few minutes still. Jorge, let me ask you the last question, which is – and it’s just so fascinating to follow the whole Cell C Story, right? It’s been around for so long, but in so many different iterations. It’s felt like a startup almost throughout. It’s like a pivot, and then, “Oh, it doesn’t work.” Recap. Pivot. “Oh, it doesn’t work.” Recap. Pivot. “Oh, it’s working.”
So, as you look back now. One of the investment highlights in the IPO deck talks about ‘turnaround delivered’, which is strong wording. That means, “We’ve done it, we’ve done the turnaround, we’re ready for growth.” Now, as you look at the balance sheet, as you look at what’s happened, as you look at now being distinct from Blu Label, etcetera.
If you could just spend a couple of minutes on what gives you the confidence to say that? Why do you believe it’s now behind you, this turnaround, and you’ve got this platform for growth?
Jorge Mendes: Yeah, thanks. That’s a very good question. And firstly, I’m very honoured and privileged to be able to be in this position. I think a lot of great names have come before me. Strategies are easy to assess looking backwards – “That was clearly the wrong thing” – but clearly, no one goes into a strategy upfront saying, “I hope I fail so that someone can write a story about it.” So, there have been great names that have come before me.
It’s a household brand. It’s 24 years old. Why I say turnaround delivered, certainly in the two-and-a-half years I’ve been in the role, I know what we inherited in terms of the organisation. So, that’s balance sheet, financials, creditor stretch, the type of organisation, the strategy, what we had in systems and people and all of that.
We’re up to date on everything in terms of payments, the creditor stretch is down to nothing. That was in the billions. We’ve removed costs – that was not there. We had all sorts of things happening in the organisation – that’s completely clean. Our balance sheet is now just trading debt, so that’s a fantastic position. We’ve been ‘unshackled’, so to speak.
And I think an important part of getting to a listing is that it gives credibility when you meet the JSE requirements. And we did. I think it’s called the section 144A, which is the US listing. It’s a very stringent process. So, what it does is suddenly, as a listed entity, you have a different level of credibility.
So, where perhaps it was murky, and “We’re not sure those guys are still going to be around, what’s their financial position? Will they survive?” That starts changing immediately because the level of scrutiny and governance (and I’ve always operated personally in environments this way), it changes overnight. So, our financial position is fundamentally different.
The execution over the last two years has been nothing short of remarkable and relentless in what we’ve done in a very short space of time. With systems, with the brand, with the financial position, with clearing debt, with changing the balance sheet, it’s done.
It’s not happening. It’s not “possibly” – it is done. It is behind us, and now it allows us to compete favourably. So we were like a Mvela Golden League team that arrived to play a Premiership team. We had different-coloured socks. We had borrowed boots. We made a plan on transport and how to get to the game, and somehow we delivered a result.
And now we’ve been promoted to the Premiership. And we’re at the beginning of this new journey, and the resilience and the scars on our back that we’ve learned. And we have to remain humble, we have to remain professional, we have to remain accessible, and we have to remain a win-win organisation.
Through deep partnerships, I think we will unlock tremendous value. So, I’m less interested about the share price. We didn’t talk about it that much and you said right up-front that it’s about the IPO. The value is the value. It doesn’t really matter because I am very confident.
I’ve never been more convicted in my life that the value and the growth in this organisation is there. It’s a strong growth story, it’s a strong cash-generative business. But it’s only because we will do all the right things, and then those KPIs will follow.
So, normally, if you focus on the share price, you don’t run a business that well. But if you focus on running a business that well, normally you get rewarded in the share price over time. And I think that’s the consistency we’re looking for and the credibility that we have to bring. Hopefully, we can make all stakeholders and shareholders proud of this organisation in future.
The Finance Ghost: Yeah, I love that. And just to be clear for the listeners, it wasn’t that I was asked not to ask you about the share price. I said I don’t want to because I personally get nervous when CEOs start talking about the share price. The share price is a function of a million things, and all you should be worrying about is running the business. So, I love that you think that way, because it’s the right way.
So, Jorge, this has been amazing. I did note you started as a call centre agent in the 1990s. So, you’re well versed in doing podcasts, which explains why you’re so good at this.
Thank you so much for your time, and just, good luck. I certainly hope this won’t be our last podcast. I look forward to following the Cell C story and writing about it in Ghost Mail. And yeah, really, all the best.
It’s exciting to see these new listings on the JSE. It’s exciting to see some growth in South Africa, some excitement and more competition in the telco space. The winners there are the South African consumers, which is obviously great for everyone. So, congratulations and thank you.
Jorge Mendes: Thank you very much. Really appreciate it. Thanks for the time today.
Anglo American and Teck Resources shareholders approve the merger (JSE: AGL)
Hopefully, the “merger of equals” spam will soon leave us on SENS
If there’s one thing that Anglo American has tried very hard to convince us of, it’s that the deal with Teck Resources is a “merger of equals” – and the problem is that it actually isn’t. If it was a merger of companies of similar value, they wouldn’t need to shout at us constantly about it!
Anyway, the merger of not-really-equals has been approved by the shareholders of both Anglo American and Teck Resources. The combined group will have more than 70% of its exposure in copper. It’s incredible to see the focus on copper among the mining giants. They better all hope that demand doesn’t disappoint.
Grindrod releases a sobering update after a strong share price run (JSE: GND)
This chart looks vulnerableto me
Grindrod is up 34% year-to-date. The share price made it all the way up to R18 before falling to the current level of R16. It looks less stable than your favourite uncle after his 8th drink at the family Christmas jol:
The pre-close update is a mixed bag, so that makes this chart even more interesting. As you’ll shortly see, volumes are weak but margins are strong.
Mining commodity markets have had a tough year once you go beyond gold and platinum. Grindrod’s dry-bulk commodities experienced a 12% decline in the period. Demand for iron ore and chrome was thankfully resilient, but the reality is that Grindrod makes more money when its mining clients are making more money and shipping more products.
The dry-bulk terminal at the Port of Maputo exported 13.9 Mt for the period vs. 13.2 Mt in 2024. Grindrod’s dry-bulk terminals were good for 15.2 Mt vs. 15.5 Mt last year. Elsewhere in the business, the ship agency and clearing/forwarding operations were described as “resilient” and the recovery in the container and graphite handling businesses is slow. Low deployment of locomotives impacted their rail performance. Overall, other than Port of Maputo, volumes look tough.
The saving grace is the margin story. In the Port and Terminals segment, EBITDA margin increased from 35% to 39%. The Logistics EBITDA margin, excluding transport brokering, is down from 27% to 25%. Thankfully, Port and Terminals is the most profitable part of the business (headline earnings of R448 million in the interim period vs. R140 million in Logistics). And at Port of Maputo, the share of earnings increased by 5.6% to R338.3 million.
Although gross debt increased from R2.9 billion to R3.7 billion, the group actually improved from net debt of R0.4 billion to net cash of R0.2 billion.
There are some good news stories in here, but is it enough to support such a sharp increase in the share price this year?
Has KAP finally found the bottom and turned higher? (JSE: KAP)
This update is strong and the market liked it
KAP closed a casual 13% higher on Wednesday on strong trading volumes. The share price is still very ill, as this long-term chart shows:
You can’t see it on this chart, but the share price is down 38% year-to-date even after the rally on Wednesday. If the bottom is indeed in, then there’s a long runway for a turnaround.
The results for the year ended June were poor. They were hit by major pressure points, including lower OEM vehicle production that impacted the Feltex business, as well as the ramp-up costs of the PG Bison MDF line that was commissioned during a period of weak demand. It’s a low base for comparison, so take that into account when you consider the trading statement for the six months to December 2025 that reflects an increase in HEPS of more than 20%.
Here’s another thing to keep in mind: the concept of “at least 20%” is the bare minimum disclosure for a trading statement. It could be only slightly higher, or it could be much higher. In all likelihood, a further trading statement will be released in January.
Where has the improvement come from? Well, PG Bison has increased its volumes and seen a better performance in revenue and operating profit. Unitrans managed to improve margins despite a decline in revenue, as the transport company is focusing on higher margin work. Feltex enjoyed higher domestic vehicle assembly volumes.
Of course, as we are accustomed to at KAP, there are one or two divisions that are still having a bad time. Safripol is the most worrying one, as this is a core division that is struggling with overcapacity in the market. It’s so bad that they stopped production at the PET plant in Durban for five weeks to rather work their way through elevated inventory levels! Both revenue and profit were down vs. the prior period at Safripol.
Finally, obscure startup Optix suffered a decline in profit. It’s long overdue that KAP got out of this one.
The scary capex cycle is behind them, with spend over the next three to five years focused on higher capacity at PG Bison and improving the average fleet age at Unitrans.
Aside from a target like R700 million annual operating profit at Unitrans over the medium term, the group is targeting a net debt reduction of R500 million in FY26. That will certainly help.
It’s great to see some positivity at KAP. But time has taught me that this diversified industrials group always has a headache somewhere, so I’m approaching it with caution. The market really loved it though, as evidenced by the share price jump.
Libstar exits fresh mushrooms and is still in talks with potential acquirers for the whole group (JSE: LBR)
The share price has been volatilein anticipation of a potential deal
As you can see on this chart, Libstar’s share price was deep in a hole earlier this year. Like the fresh mushrooms that it is now disposing of, the chart managed to spring up overnight in response to news of a potential acquirer swooping in for Libstar. Since then, it’s been choppy:
The good news is that Libstar is still engaging with the potential acquirers regarding the expressions of interest that were received. There’s no guarantee of a deal going ahead, but there’s still a good chance.
The other good news is that the company is moving ahead with cleaning up the group. For example, they’ve announced the disposal of the fresh mushroom business, other than the property in the Western Cape and the Denny brand itself which Libstar will license to the purchaser. This is because Libstar wants to keep producing certain Denny-branded products. The disposal will trigger a loss on sale of between R45 million and R55 million. This is an accounting measure of the difference between the book value of the assets and the selling price. It isn’t a reflection of whether the sale is the right decision or not.
Libstar is also assessing non-binding expressions of interest regarding the remaining Household and Personal Care business. They need to get out of that space and simplify the group as soon as practically possible.
To give a sense of trading performance, they’ve delivered a pre-close trading update for the 47 weeks to 21 November. They’ve excluded the fresh mushrooms business that is being sold anyway.
Revenue increased by 6.7%. There were some significant extraordinary items due to bulk sales, inventory clearances and business closures. If you adjust for this, then volumes were up 3.1% and price/mix contributed 3.6%. Encouragingly, gross margins were up for the year, so that speaks to an improved trading performance overall.
They are also on track to deliver the year-end debt guidance, with net debt to normalised EBITDA improving from the 1.3x reported for the interim period.
Looking at the segments, Ambient Products looks fine, with revenue up 5.6%. Volumes were down 0.4% (or up 4.5% on an adjusted basis) and price/mix contributed 5.9%. But then we get to Perishables where things went rather mad, with revenue growth of 8.1% thanks to wild swings of positive 23.2% in volumes and a price/mix reduction of 15.0%. The adjusted volumes growth is 1.4%. You can see why they’ve disclosed the adjusted numbers to try and give investors a better idea of the true performance.
Results are due for release on 17 March. The big question is whether some kind of deal announcement will happen before then.
Mr Price throws a stick of dynamite at its investment thesis – and share price (JSE: MRP)
The share price tanked 13.7% in response to this inability to read the room
Until Wednesday, there were two types of FMCG companies on the local market right now: those who are executing turnarounds, cleaning up after a decade of dicey deal making and reaping the rewards, and those who haven’t figured out yet that the market is tired of ownership of non-core assets.
But now we have a third type: Mr Price. 2014 called and wants its dumb offshore strategy back, please.
In an announcement of a deal that feels like a fever dream, Mr Price announced the acquisition of 100% (first problem) of European (second problem) value retailer NKD Group GmbH from a private equity seller (third problem).
Let’s just deal with the three immediate issues.
Firstly, offshore acquisitions should always be a smaller stake with a pathway to control and eventually 100% once the business is fully understood. Running straight into a 100% stake is such poor structuring that I can’t believe the board signed off on this.
The second issue is that this business is in Europe. How many more South African retailers are going to try and get it right in Europe? NKD may be an apparel and homeware retailer in Central and Eastern Europe and thus Mr Price feels like they understand that model, but we have endless examples of local management teams who made similar mistakes in faraway lands.
Thirdly, the seller is a private equity house. Buying from private equity is rarely a great idea. These people are experts at packaging a business with a big shiny bow on it, even if the underlying business has issues. They are also focused on maximising the exit price. Negotiating with private equity houses is a dance with wolves. You might get it right, but there’s a good chance of getting bitten.
We then get to the biggest issue of all: instead of dipping their toes overseas, Mr Price has dived headfirst into a rip current near the rocks. They are paying a whopping R9.66 billion for the group, or roughly a fifth of the Mr Price market cap after the obliteration of the share price (down 13.7% on the day) in response to this news.
Mr Price notes that NKD achieved sales of nearly R14.2 billion in 2024. They are therefore paying nearly 0.7x sales for the acquisition. Yes, that’s less than the 1.2x that Mr Price trades at, but it’s not cheap.
With NKD expected to be roughly 25% of group sales after the acquisition, they are literally baking in a substantial drag on the group valuation until they rebuild trust in the market. The old days of roll-up strategies where you buy something “cheap” and the market magically re-rates those earnings once you own them are far behind us.
As a sign of just how significant the shift in sentiment in response to offshore deals has been, most of the deal value was wiped off the Mr Price market cap a short while after the announcement. The market has declared this acquisition to be almost worthless. That might be an opportunity for those willing to trust the Mr Price management team in the hope that they won’t do any more bonkers deals.
NKD did generate a significant net loss in the 6 months to June 2025, but that was because of debt refinancing and hedging derivative valuation charges. If you remove those, profit after tax was roughly R129 million for the six months. How exciting. If you go back to December 2024, the annual profit was R261 million. This means that Mr Price is paying a Price/Earnings multiple of 37x for this asset.
What on earth are they thinking?
They describe NKD as a “high performing business with a strong track record” and they talk about how value retailing is growing in popularity in Europe. They also talk about “limited distraction for both management teams” – goodness knows nobody is going to take that seriously. No amount of perfume can possibly be put on this valuation pig.
As the final nail in the coffin, they have to fund this with a mix of existing cash and debt.
This is a Category 2 transaction, so shareholders won’t be asked to vote on the transaction. They voted with their feet though, as shown on the share price chart. Unsurprisingly, Mr Price’s share price has now dived down towards where Foschini Group (JSE: TFG) and Truworths (JSE: TRU) find themselves:
The biggest irritation is that my entire investment thesis here was based on Mr Price being a simpler group than peers with more focused exposure. It was working, with Mr Price having stabilised at my in-price and looking good for a recovery towards where Pepkor (JSE: PPH) is trading. Mr Price has now thrown a stick of dynamite at that thesis and people are quite rightfully angry.
Nibbles:
Director dealings:
Now here’s a share purchase worth paying attention to: two entities associated with Johnny Copelyn, the CEO of Hosken Consolidated Investments (JSE: HCI), bought shares worth almost R119 million! That’s a serious show of faith.
Nampak (JSE: NPL) CEO Phil Roux’s hedging transaction has been closed out and the underlying shares have been sold in the market. The value of the transaction that was unwound is R49 million.
An associate of a director of Lewis Group (JSE: LEW) bought shares worth R41k.
African Rainbow Minerals (JSE: ARI) announced that they have received R1.5 billion from Assmang in respect of the year ended June 2025.
Labat Africa (JSE: LAB) announced that Brian van Rooyen is retiring from the board. He co-founded the company all the way back in 1995, so this really does signal the final changing of the guard. The future of the company is all about the IT sector rather than the cannabis assets that the Labat brand was known for. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see a name change.
Salungano Group (JSE: SLG) is suspended from trading, but they are making progress towards catching up on financial reporting. We know this because they’ve released a trading statement for the six months to September 2024 – and no, that isn’t a typo. In case you care about that period, HEPS was between 21 cents and 24 cents vs. a headline loss of 90 cents for the six months to September 2023 (which feels like a lifetime ago).
BHP unlocks capital through an energy deal with BlackRock (JSE: BHP)
Here’s an innovative way to be more capital efficient
BHP holds an 85% interest in Western Australia Iron Ore (WAIO). WAIO owns an inland power network that is suitable for ownership by infrastructure investors who have very different cost of capital requirements to mining houses.
To take advantage of these structurally different return requirements, BHP has entered into a deal with Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) – part of BlackRock – that will see GIP invest $2 billion in funding in return for a 49% stake in the inland power network. BHP will pay the new entity a tariff linked to its share of inland power over a 25-year period.
In my opinion, the announcement isn’t very clear on the exact structure. But the overall story here is one of BHP retaining operational control of the inland power infrastructure, while bringing in external capital to unlock funding that can be allocated to other projects. Sounds sensible to me.
British American Tobacco reaffirms guidance for 2026 despite a slower year in 2025 (JSE: BTI)
The group has also announced a £1.3billion share buyback
British American Tobacco has announced an expectation of 2% growth in both revenue and adjusted profit from operations in FY25. It’s actually a good outcome in the context of global tobacco industry volumes being down 2%.
The company is on a treadmill. As demand for traditional tobacco products thankfully falls away, they are replacing that revenue with the “New Category” stuff that is allegedly healthier and thus helps them tick the ESG box and have rainbow-themed pages on the corporate website. These products grew revenue by double digits in the second half of the year, a useful acceleration vs. the full year growth in the mid-single digits.
One of the biggest issues faced by the company has been illicit products in the US market, a country that they describe as “the world’s largest nicotine value pool”. They’ve gained a lot of market share in some New Categories in that market, although revenue for Vuse is still down by high single digits for the year due to the terrible first half of the year (-13%) in the North American market.
Despite an uninspiring FY25, the company has reaffirmed guidance for 2026. This suggests revenue growth of 3% to 5%, adjusted profit from operations growth of 4% to 6% and adjusted diluted EPS up by between 5% and 8%. This shape is only made possible by share buybacks to reduce the number of shares in issue over time, with a new buyback of £1.3 billion being announced.
They are also on track to reduce leverage to within 2x to 2.5x (net debt to adjusted EBITDA), helped by the recent disposal of ITC Hotels.
Mahube Infrastructure may be leaving the JSE (JSE: MHB)
The offer price is yet another slapin the face for the concept of NAV per share
It’s becoming harder by the day for investors to put much faith in the concept of net asset value (NAV) per share. Investment holding companies have been falling like flies, with delisting prices at significant discounts to NAV. At least the discounts have generally been in the range of 20% to 30%, which is then justified by marketability discounts. An interesting step that we saw recently was RMB Holdings (JSE: RMH) recognise an impairment on its balance sheet for this marketability discount. It’s starting to feel like all investment holding companies should be doing the same.
Mahube Infrastructure takes the cake though. After a few months of negotiations, Sustent Holdings has submitted a firm intention to make an offer to shareholders. The price is R5.50, which is below the current price of R6.00 per share (admittedly a very illiquid stock) and miles below the net asset value of R10.25 as at August 2025.
They are quick to point out that the price is a premium of 54% to the 30-day VWAP leading up to the first cautionary announcement being released on 25 August. Still, that’s cold comfort for shareholders who are now faced with an offer at a 46% discount to NAV per share.
This will be structured as a scheme of arrangement. Shareholders who want to retain the shares in an unlisted environment will be entitled to do so. The company making this offer is a special purpose vehicle put together by Mergence Investment Managers and Creation Capital Services. If you work up the chain, a fund managed by Creation currently holds 34.9% in Mahube.
I don’t think anybody is really going to miss this name on the local market. For me, the bigger issue here is that the credibility of NAV per share just keeps getting worse. At what point will auditors force the issue around marketability discounts?
All is not lost for the local ferrochrome industry – Merafe and Eskom are still talking (JSE: MRF)
The negotiations will continue until the end of February 2026
The local ferrochrome industry is in crisis. The beneficiation of chrome ore into ferrochrome is a process that can best be described as an energy pig. As we all know, energy costs in South Africa have gone up substantially. On the plus side, our lights actually work all year. Remember the 12 hours a day or more of load shedding?
One of the casualties in this process of improving Eskom’s financials is Merafe, the ferrochrome-focused company that has a joint venture with Glencore (JSE: GLN). Due to the economics of energy costs vs. the selling prices for the products, Merafe is already in the process of putting two smelters into care and maintenance. This will leave them with only the Lion smelter.
Although there’s no solution to these problems just yet, Eskom has agreed to keep talking to the ferrochrome industry with the intention of finding a solution by the end of February 2026.
I’m all for local production, but if South Africa cannot produce this stuff competitively, then it means we shouldn’t be doing it. There are countless other businesses in South Africa that have to manage energy costs and find solutions. What makes ferrochrome special?
Thungela’s pre-close statement deals with a difficult year (JSE: TGA)
The share price is down 29% this year
A strong dividend yield doesn’t help you when a share price falls sharply. Thungela’s share price has been under great pressure this year, with the dividend offsetting only a portion of the decline (the total return for the year is -19%). This is the important backdrop to the pre-close statement released by the company for the year ending 31 December 2025.
Let’s start with the good news: South African export saleable production is expected to be 13.7 Mt and thus above the guided range of 12.8 Mt to 13.6 Mt. Improvements at Transnet Freight Rail have been most welcome, with volumes up 9% year-on-year. This is the momentum we need to see in South African infrastructure.
Over in Australia, a period of lower quality coal production caused challenges for sales in the first half. Thankfully, they have subsequently found buyers for the coal. They expect to achieve export saleable production of 3.8 Mt at Esham, within the guided range of 3.7 Mt to 4.1 Mt.
Coal prices unfortunately haven’t played ball this year. For example, Newcastle coal prices hit a four-year low in September 2025. Looking at the year-on-year move, the Richards Bay Benchmark average fell 15% and the Newcastle Benchmark average fell 22%. The prices realised by Thungela can differ from the benchmarks, but this gives you an idea of where things have gone directionally.
In terms of capital expenditure, total capex in South Africa of R2.6 billion is split into sustaining capex of R1.4 billion and expansionary capex of R1.2 billion. In Australia, they only incurred sustaining capex of R650 million. Across the regions, sustaining capex is either below guidance or at the lower end of guidance, while expansionary capex in South Africa was at the upper end of guidance.
The capital allocation strategy included the repurchase of 3.4% of issued share capital during 2025. It’s important to see the company doing this during a period of depressed share prices. The net cash balance is expected to be between R4.9 billion and R5.2 billion by the end of December.
The dividend policy is to pay 30% of adjusted operating free cash flow, although the board has the flexibility to add a further buffer to give them flexibility through the cycle.
Nibbles:
Director dealings:
The CEO of Woolworths (JSE: WHL) sold shares worth R36.8 million to “rebalance” his portfolio. A sale is a sale, regardless of the underlying reason. Woolworths hasn’t exactly been a star performer, down 12.5% year-to-date and nearly 20% over three years.
Fascinatingly, on the same day, Shoprite (JSE: SHP) announced that an entity related to the CEO sold shares worth around R34.5 million to “rebalance” his portfolio. You can see how this language has become commonly used on the JSE. Shoprite’s rather demanding P/E multiple means that the share price has actually lost 7% this year! The share price is up 15% over three years though.
The spouse and family investment entity of a director of Lewis (JSE: LEW) bought shares in the company worth a total of R561k.
The company secretary of Thungela Resources (JSE: TGA) has sold shares worth R116k.
In big news for Stefanutti Stocks (JSE: SSK), the R580 million settlement has been received from Eskom. At least R500 million will be used towards the outstanding facility with Standard Bank before the end of February 2026.
Here’s good news for Accelerate Property Fund (JSE: APF) punters like yours truly. GCR has upgraded the credit rating from SD(ZA) (selective default) to C(ZA) (a very weak rating). Think of it as going from kakste to kakker. The journey to just being kak continues. This is how turnarounds work.
Wesizwe Platinum (JSE: WEZ) is working towards the lifting of its suspension from trading. The interims for the six months to 30 June 2025 have been delayed as the auditor’s opinion included a disclaimer. Wesizwe wants to release financials without a disclaimer, so they are doing additional work to try and address this. This delay will push the interim results out to March 2026.
Absa’s ROE is moving higher, but watch those margins (JSE: ABG)
The recent momentum in the share price might be too strong
In the B-league of local banking, Absa and Nedbank (JSE: NED) fight it out for best of the rest. Their share prices have decoupled this year, with Absa pulling away with 17% growth vs. Nedbank down almost 10%.
The five-year picture is much closer, with the improvement in macroeconomic conditions in the rest of Africa giving Absa a lovely boost this year and helping it make back most of the lost ground:
For context, Capitec (JSE: CPI) is up 184% over the same period!
Absa’s strong share price momentum in the second half of 2025 is thanks mainly to the low valuation it was on. Yes, there’s growth in the business, but not much to get excited about.
In a voluntary trading update for the year ended December 2025, they flag mid-single digit revenue growth. From a return on equity (ROE) perspective, the good news is that growth in non-interest revenue was ahead of net interest income. Non-interest revenue is a more capital-efficient way to generate income, so it juices up ROE.
The credit loss ratio has been the biggest highlight, improving from 103 basis points (outside the target range) to be within the upper half of the through-the-cycle target range of 75 to 100 basis points.
The concern, like at Nedbank, lies in expenses. The cost-to-income ratio is going the wrong way, as expenses are up by mid-single digits and revenue growth is slightly lower than that.
Thanks to the mix effect of higher non-interest revenue and of course the reduction in the credit loss ratio, ROE is expected to improve from 14.8% to 15.0%. HEPS growth will be in the low double digits. This is difficult to extrapolate though, as the credit loss ratio moving back within range is a step change in the numbers that won’t happen every year.
Looking ahead to 2026, they expect mid-single digit revenue growth, slightly positive Jaws (this means revenue growth ahead of expenses and thus margin expansion – that’s a big one to watch) and further improvement in the credit loss ratio. This should take them to ROE of 16%. The ROE target range for 2027 to 2030 is 16% to 19%.
Let’s see if they can pull it off!
Capitec acquires Walletdoc for up to R400 million (JSE: CPI)
This is a classic example of the outcome that startups look for
The venture capital (VC) industry is built around pumping money into startups that stand a decent chance of being acquired one day. Very few such startups are built to be financially viable on their own, as the goal is to scale quickly and build something that would be appealing to a corporate buyer who could plug the company into a larger ecosystem.
I have no idea at this stage if Walletdoc is profitable on a standalone basis, but we do know that Capitec is going to pay up to R400 million to acquire the business. This will undoubtedly inspire a zillion LinkedIn posts by VCs who will point to this deal as an example of success in the local fintech sector.
R300 million is payable up-front in cash, with the remaining R100 million being structured as a deferred earn-out over three years subject to achieving certain milestones. The earn-out would be settled in Capitec shares.
What does it mean for Capitec? Well, Walletdoc has been building its payments business since 2015. They offer various payment solutions for merchants and all kinds of tech integrations that seem to focus on smartphones and digital wallets. There is a clear strategic fit around financial services accessibility and Capitec’s push into business banking as well.
Capitec is such a behemoth that the R300 million cash portion of this deal is only 0.06% of the group’s market cap!
No Christmas cheer at Italtile I’m afraid (JSE: ITE)
Sales are weak and margins are under pressure
Italtile released a trading update dealing with 1 July to 30 November 2025. I’m afraid that there isn’t much good news to report.
Management has been incredibly transparent for ages now when it comes to the challenges facing the industry. They’ve highlighted the risks from cheap imports combined with overcapacity in local manufacturing and weak demand. This has resulted in a 6.2% drop in manufacturing sales, which means reduced capacity utilisation and thus even more pressure on margins despite management initiatives around costs.
The retail side of the business (CTM / Italtile Retail / TopT) could only increase system-wide turnover by 1.2%. Average selling prices fell year-on-year due to high levels of competition and poor consumer confidence. Despite all the positivity around South Africa this year and the reduction in interest rates, Italtile hasn’t seen an uptick in construction activity.
The update doesn’t give a specific indication of profitability, but it’s not rocket science to read between the lines here. Italtile is suffering, with the share price down 36% year-to-date and no sign of improvement in the business.
Nampak’s results look good, but the share price lacked momentum to break higher (JSE: NPK)
This is the danger of buying stocks at or near the 52-week high
Nampak’s share price hit a new 52-week high on 27 November in response to the release of a trading statement. It can be very tempting in those situations to jump on the hype train and buy the trading statement.
Personally, I’ve learnt two lessons about these situations. The first is to always wait for the release of full results to see what’s actually going on. The second is to wait for a confirmed break higher vs. buying at a strong resistance level and then hoping it breaks through.
These lessons helped me avoid some pain on this one, as Nampak has dropped by nearly 9% since that recent high:
So, the break higher clearly wasn’t confirmed, but what do the full results look like?
Nampak is executing an impressive turnaround story, with revenue from continuing operations up by 8% and trading profit jumping by 26% as the trading profit margin improved from 10.5% to 12.3%. To add to the party on the income statement, net finance costs were down 45% as net debt excluding lease liabilities dropped by 52%. This is why HEPS excluding once-off items jumped by a delightful 46%.
HEPS as reported was actually up 213%, but that’s obviously not a reflection of maintainable growth. The fact that adjusted HEPS was up by 46% shows you just how well the company is doing.
It wasn’t a perfect year. For example, the Beverage South Africa segment kicked off this period by being unable to fully meet customer demand at the end of 2024 due to production challenges that have subsequently been addressed. They have significant can capacity in Beverage South Africa and will look to take advantage of improved local conditions. Even with these challenges, this segment delivered EBITDA growth of 13% for the year.
Diversified South Africa had a much tougher time, with EBITDA down 5% due to consumer spending issues in certain categories and major customers changing their packaging strategies.
Beverage Angola performed beautifully, with EBITDA up by 30% thanks to a stable currency and a more favourable operating environment. As a sense of size, this segment contributed EBITDA of R360 million – now higher than the R310 million in Diversified South Africa. And in case you’re wondering, Beverage South Africa is bigger than both of them combined, with EBITDA of R907 million.
Cash flow from total operations increased by 38% and free cash flow was almost 5x higher at over R1 billion.
There’s still a bit of cleaning up to do, like the disposal of Nampak Zimbabwe after the initial deal to sell that business fell through. On the whole though, Nampak is putting forward a strong story here.
If you use adjusted HEPS of R77.40, then the current share price is a P/E of around 6.7x. I think the reason for the drop from the 52-week high is that the trading statement created too much hype around HEPS due to the once-offs affecting that number. This adjusted P/E multiple suggests that there might be room for some upside.
Update: an earlier version of this Ghost Bite inadvertently used the prior year adjusted HEPS for an implied P/E closer to 10x. This error and the associated commentary has been corrected.
Spar sees a “clear pathway to shareholder returns” – but that path remains treacherous (JSE: SPP)
There is a severe lack of revenue growth
Spar has released results for the 52 weeks ended 26 September 2025. The past couple of years have seen Spar executing tough decisions related to the European businesses. With the strategic restructuring largely behind them, they now need to deliver improvement in the core business in South Africa and Ireland.
With group net debt down by 40% to R5.4 billion, they have more breathing room on the balance sheet to do it. The financial position was assisted by growth in cash generated from total operations of 13.3%. They still have the hangover of the debt incurred in South Africa to get rid of the business in Poland, but at least there’s now certainty over that situation.
The trouble lies in just how competitive this market is, with turnover in Southern Africa up just 2.3% and Ireland managing just 0.6% growth in euros. Both businesses experienced a minor improvement in gross margin, so gross profit was up 4.4% and 2.2% respectively. The story diverges at operating profit level though, with Southern Africa up 6.8% and Ireland down 2.8% due to pressure in that market on wage and overhead costs. We can only hope that Ireland won’t end up going the way of Poland and Switzerland for Spar.
It’s been an ugly year for the share price, down 28% in 2025. Spar may be talking about a “clear pathway to shareholder returns” but the market isn’t buying that story just yet.
Sygnia’s dividend growth is now really lagging profits (JSE: SYG)
It feels like this should be more of a cash cow
Sygnia is a solid business. With a focus on low-cost investment funds, the group has been pursuing a lucrative strategy. This is evidenced by the 12.8% increase in revenue for the year ended September 2025.
Having now decided that South Africa’s living conditions aren’t as bad as the UK’s tax burden, CEO Magda Wierzycka has moved back to the land of sunshine and Bokke. Her CEO report talks about concepts like wanting to promote venture capital growth in South Africa and being alert to opportunities around cryptocurrencies. She also talks about AI for Africa, but I think we are dreaming if we believe that South Africa has any role to play in the current global AI arms race.
It therefore seems likely that some interesting products could emerge from Sygnia in the near-term. But in the meantime, investors will have to stomach a worrying situation in which expense growth of 13.4% was higher than revenue growth. This means that profit after tax increased by only 10.4% – a solid result when viewed in isolation, but disappointing in the context of the revenue growth.
I’m afraid it gets worse when you look at the dividend, with growth of just 6.5% to 231 cents per share. In what is essentially a capital-light model, seeing the dividend grow at approximately half the revenue growth rate isn’t encouraging. This could be why the share price dipped 4.4% on the day of results.
It’s been a great year nonetheless, with Sygnia’s share price up 65% as sentiment has swung firmly in favour of emerging market businesses.
Nibbles:
Director dealings:
A director of a subsidiary of Invicta (JSE: IVT) bought shares worth R973k.
The spouse of a director of a major subsidiary of Growthpoint (JSE: GRT) bought shares worth R694k.
A director of Spear REIT (JSE: SEA) bought shares worth R275k. Separately, a family investment entity linked to the CEO of Spear refinanced a loan from Investec for R41 million, with R90.7 million in shares pledged as security for the loan. Top executives of REITs tend to make use of debt to increase their holdings over time.
The company secretary of Famous Brands (JSE: FBR) sold shares worth R56k.
Datatec’s (JSE: DTC) scrip dividend was a success. Based on the elections by shareholders to receive more shares in lieu of cash dividends, Datatec capitalised profits of R300 million and paid out cash dividends of R110 million. Of course, it helps that the company founder and other directors have so many shares, as they supported the scrip distribution alternative.
Nictus (JSE: NCS) has brought an extraordinary period to a close. This obscure small cap has almost doubled its share price in 2025, yet liquidity remains really low. For the six months to September 2025, HEPS jumped from 26.51 cents to 41.04 cents. It’s all about the jump in insurance revenue in the group, with furniture retail revenue actually dropping slightly.
Copper 360 (JSE: CPR) announced the results of the claw-back offer to raise capital. The full R400 million in fresh equity was raised, but that’s not a surprise based on how the offer was structured. The underwriter has ended up with a big chunk of the raise, as shareholders only subscribed for 63.3% of the rights offer shares. In addition to this raise, debt instruments worth R715 million will convert into shares. With the share price having shed over 70% of its value in 2025, this capital raise is the last roll of the dice for Copper 360. They cannot afford to miss any milestones now.
Southern Palladium (JSE: SDL) issued a tranche of shares to raise A$12.74 million at an issue price of A$1.10 per share. This relates to the approval granted at the AGM held on 28 November 2025.
MultiChoice (JSE: MCG) is bringing its JSE-listed era to an end. The delisting will proceed on 10 December. But remember, Canal+ will be back with an inward listing within 9 months. Best of all, this will include the entire Canal+ group, not just MultiChoice. I look forward to that day!
Now that the compliance certificate required from the Takeover Regulation Panel (TRP) has been received, Safari Investments (JSE: SAR) will be suspended from trading on 17 December and will then pay the clean-out distribution before being delisted on 23 December.
Anglo American (JSE: AGL) withdrew Resolution 2 from the agenda of the 9 December shareholder meeting. This resolution related to amendments to long-term incentive plans in light of the deal with Teck Resources. This only happens when engagement with shareholders before the meeting suggests that the resolution will fail to pass.
In case you’re wondering, Curro (JSE: COH) is still waiting for confirmation of the dates of the Competition Tribunal’s approval process.
Trustco (JSE: TTO) is never far away from drama, with the company refusing to entertain an attempt by the Riskowitz Value Fund to get various new directors appointed to the board. Trustco’s view is that the notice sent to the company by Riskowitz was legally defective. I can just about guarantee that this fight is only warming up.
Oasis Crescent (JSE: OAS) announced that holders of 57.05% of units elected to receive the cash distribution, while the holders of the remaining 42.95% of units elected to reinvest their distribution in the property fund.
As another reminder to the market that they are very serious about the bitcoin strategy, Africa Bitcoin Corporation (JSE: BAC) has appointed Dr Saifedean Ammous as Bitcoin Strategic Advisor.
As we look back on a fascinating year in the markets, Nico Katzke (Head of Portfolio Solutions at Satrix) delivered a fantastic mix of insights on this podcast that can be applied to your strategy in 2026 and beyond.
For example, it’s so important not to learn the wrong lessons from a particular investment or observation. It’s also important to avoid complexity for the sake of complexity – if there’s a simple solution that works, then that’s probably the right one.
Along with insights related to investment term, diversification, the AI “bubble” (a term that Nico isn’t a fan of), US hegemony, gold and REITs, there’s just so much in here. Get ready to apply more discipline and less drama to your portfolio decisions, assisted by the depth of knowledge and experience shared by Nico on this podcast.
Satrix Investments (Pty) Ltd & Satrix Managers (RF) (Pty) Ltd is an authorised financial services provider. The information does not constitute advice as contemplated in FAIS. Use or rely on this information at your own risk. Consult your Financial Adviser before making an investment decision. While every effort has been made to ensure the reasonableness and accuracy of the information contained in this document (“the information”), the FSP’s, its shareholders, subsidiaries, clients, agents, officers and employees do not make any representations or warranties regarding the accuracy or suitability of the information and shall not be held responsible and disclaims all liability for any loss, liability and damage whatsoever suffered as a result of or which may be attributable, directly or indirectly, to any use of or reliance upon the information. For more information, visit https://satrix.co.za/products
Full Transcript:
The Finance Ghost: Welcome to this episode of the Ghost Stories podcast. We are deep in December 2025 (although I must say that anything past the 1st of December starts to feel like ‘deep in December’ to me). I’m always caught out by how many company announcements there still are at this time of year, and I’m quite ready for a holiday, I must be honest.
My guest today, Nico Katzke, I suspect he’s also ready for a holiday. And of course, Nico is from Satrix. You’ve heard from him many times before. Nico has promised me that he’s ready to finish strong. He’s brought some solid insights here.
And then I hope, from here, you are going straight to the beach! Although I suspect it’s not quite that time of year yet for you, is it?
Nico Katzke: Yeah, definitely ready for a holiday. They say if you do what you love, you don’t need a holiday, right? But I still need one, I can tell you that.
The Finance Ghost: Yeah, they say this, but what they do not say is that if you do what you love for 70 hours a week, then you still need a holiday. That’s the little nuance that they seem to leave out quite often.
Speaking of doing things for a long time, Satrix has turned 25 (it’s almost as old as you, Nico), which is very exciting – 25 years of ETFs in South Africa!
I’ve got a discussion coming up with someone from Satrix regarding the history of the group and everything, which I’m really looking forward to. I won’t give away yet who it is yet.
But in the meantime, let’s just touch on this, because I know these birthday celebrations are nice and fresh. You’ve been very involved in this space – for how many years now, Nico? How many of those 25 years have you been doing this for?
Nico Katzke: I’ve been with Satrix now for just over five years. I joined, and shortly after I joined, we celebrated 20 years. So, yeah, it’s great to celebrate the next milestone.
The Finance Ghost: Yeah, that’s pretty cool. You’ve been with them for 20% of the journey, basically, so that’s a pretty big chunk. And of course, as with all growing businesses, what happens in the latter years just dwarfs what happened in the early years. It’s always amazing to see that snowball effect.
So, I think let’s start there, just a little bit. There’s been some regulatory stuff along the way. I don’t want to go into tons of detail on this, but it’ll be nice to just get your thoughts on looking back over this journey and ETFs in South Africa. What really stands out for you?
Nico Katzke: It has been a phenomenal journey. I think when ETFs were first introduced in the 2000s, the investment landscape was quite a bit different. So, this week, as part of our celebrations, we rang the bell at the JSE, and there were a few very interesting speakers as well.
One of them, Mike Brown, spoke about how when they introduced ETFs at the time (and literally this was 2000, so people had just survived Y2K, and a lot of uncertainty and things abound). But what he said that was interesting and which stuck with me was that, at the time, investing was considered extremely complicated, and you needed a lot of capital to invest in anything. So, what ETFs did was they really threw the cat among the pigeons in the investment landscape by introducing a very simple and low-cost way to actually invest.
What it enabled investors to do was, instead of investing in single shares, you could buy a share that represented a whole basket of shares. In other words, you could buy a portfolio – a well-diversified portfolio – at a low cost on the local index. And that certainly changed the game.
At the time, there was a lot of scepticism, “Will this take off? Is there a future in ETFs locally?” And well, if we’ve just seen the growth we’ve experienced over the last few years, and certainly over this period, it does indeed prove the early movers right.
The Finance Ghost: Yeah, absolutely. It’s been a huge part of the landscape now. It’s a big part of so many people’s portfolios, and ETFs are just so important, which is obviously why we do this.
But what I also love so much about the podcast that we do is we get to talk about the markets in general, because I think we’ve done a good job of showing people over time that there’s so much more to ETFs than just going and buying the JSE Top 40, for example. Although that would have been a smart thing to do this year, as time has taught us.
There are so many ETFs out there. There are so many different ways to take a view on the market. We’ve talked before about how it’s actually much more of an active thing than just this passive narrative that gets thrown around with ETFs, which I know you’re definitely not a fan of.
So, it’s really been good to understand more about that and to show the importance of ETFs. And congrats, Satrix! 25 years is really wonderful.
So, Nico, let’s tap into some of the lessons then, that you’ve learned in 2025, because this has been a very topsy-turvy year. We’ve had big geopolitical stuff. We’ve had this incredible resurgence in the South African market, actually.
Yes, a lot of it has been gold, but if you actually look in the past few months, a lot of it has also come from JSE mid-caps, from consumer stocks, and from companies like Tiger Brands and some really encouraging turnarounds.
It’s been very nice to see the momentum in South Africa specifically. And obviously, here we’re biased, you know, we’re wearing our South African hats. Everyone wants to see their own country do well, obviously.
Overseas, we’ve seen some huge moves again in the US market. Everyone’s talking about AI. Everyone’s throwing the word ‘bubble’ around, which I know is something you want to talk about.
So, I think let’s dive into it. I’m going to open the floor to you. You can take us through these lessons however you so choose. I’m looking forward to discussing them with you. What have been some of your big lessons from 2025?
Nico Katzke: So, just for the listeners, Ghost and I spoke before the recording about what we are going to be discussing, and I said I would jot down a few lessons, maybe not necessarily learned this year alone, but certainly that were relevant this year.
The first one that I jotted down is that inaction is sometimes the best course of action, right? And this is evidenced by equity’s strong recovery after quite a strong dip in April, and investors would probably know now – had you stayed the course, you wouldn’t have lost money. And at the time in April, inaction was actually the best course of action.
Remember, this was just after Trump’s unexpected, let’s call it ‘enthusiastic’ embrace of all things tariff and isolationism, etcetera. The MSCI World at the time was down 5% since the start of the year, and many investors would have been spooked. I know of a lot of people who sold their equity holdings at the time.
The only unfortunate thing is, since then, the same index has recovered more than 20%. Meaning, had you sold after losing ground in April, you wouldn’t have participated in the upside.
Now, there’s a lesson in this, right? The key is not to try and time your participation or be clever with technical moves and adjustments. Instead, just staying the course over lengthy periods of time takes the guesswork out of things completely and really allows compounding to start working its magic in your portfolio.
So, it comes down to a set-and-forget strategy when it comes to investing. And this is not just a way of staying sane. It’s actually really the best way to grow your wealth long-term.
So, we learned this lesson, very much, that long-term focus helps manage market anxiety, but really gets you to your destination.
The Finance Ghost: And I think it’s very important to understand what you own, because you’re not going to ‘set and forget’, as you say, unless you actually know the thing you are setting. So, you have to feel confident that what you’ve bought, you’ve bought for a reason – whether that’s single stocks, or ETFs, or whatever the case may be.
And you have to have a real idea of the difference between volatility and a material change to your investment thesis. Because it’s equally not useful if you buy (specifically single stocks), if a company is going down severely, and you’re just going to sit and hold and hope. That’s also not a great strategy. So, you have got to be able to tell the difference between market volatility and a company-specific problem.
If you go up to ETF level, then you don’t necessarily have the company-specific stuff, although there are some indices that’ve got some pretty big individual exposures, right? You look at some of these tech ETFs, and guess what? You’re going to find that Nvidia is a big part of the story, and AI is a big part of the story. So, this is why understanding what you’ve bought is actually really important.
Nico Katzke: Great point. This leads very nicely into the next lesson, and that is the importance (and I oftentimes emphasise this in my discussions with financial advisers) of investment term, right?
What I mean by this is that you should always, when evaluating risk versus reward, consider how long you intend to remain invested. In financial terms, we like to think of this as keeping in mind your ‘investment term’.
Now, what this means is, when answering typical questions – like whether investing in equities now is a good idea, whether I should buy this stock or not, or whether a more conservative approach currently is warranted – the answer must always be prefaced by how long you likely intend to remain invested.
And I so often see investors, and even professional investors, make this mistake. Where we think of the world very simply as, “It’s risky now to invest in equities.” Or, “It’s a great time to be investing in cash.”
And so, why investment term is very important – let’s take, for example, if there is a high likelihood of you needing to exit the investment in the short term. Then, one should always be wary of risk assets such as equities or commodities.
If you know you are going to access your investment probably in the next six months, I wouldn’t take much risk there. But if your investment term actually allows it, then taking on more risk is not irresponsible.
On the contrary, probably the biggest risk you can take with your long-term investments is not taking enough risk. And, think about it – cash and bonds should not, over the long term, make you wealthy. They should, at best, compensate you for inflation plus a small premium, right?
So, understanding what part of your income you should dedicate to setting aside for rainy days, savings, for example, where your investment term is definitely short, versus the part of what you set aside that you intend for investing for the long term.
This is a key step in your financial journey and, I would argue, probably one that you should consider getting an expert opinion on – both for tax and estate planning purposes, of course, but also just for the emotional support role that is played by your adviser.
I mean, I always think about it. We can all find a YouTube video that shows us what to do at the gym, but I promise you. If you’re alone at the gym, even if you’re watching the video, as soon as you get tired, you’re going to pause. You’re going to take a break, have a sip of water, and maybe check Instagram or something.
But I promise you, if there is someone standing there, motivating you, telling you, “You should do 20 reps.” You’re probably going to do those 20 reps. And that is where the financial adviser has a very important role to play. Helping you ground and understand what investment term you’re looking at.
If you are investing for retirement in 20 – 30 years, you should be far more inclined to expose your portfolio to those risk assets that allow long-term compounding, as opposed to having a large part of that in cash or bonds – which over the short term make you feel safe, but really over the long term are where you pay back a lot of the gains that you would’ve had, had you had more exposure to risk assets.
The Finance Ghost: Yeah, I mean, the truth of it is, if it were as easy as just using the information out there and not ever needing to get anyone to help or guide you, then everyone would be an expert in everything, because everything is on the internet.
And yet, here we are. In a world where coaching makes a huge difference because of discipline, mindset, expertise, and also just sticking to what you’re good at, as well.
It’s all good and well to say, “Okay, well, I’ll go and learn everything I need to know that my financial adviser might tell me.” Maybe you could, but your time would probably be much better spent going and getting even better at the thing you already do for a living, so you can go and earn more money and rather just use an expert where you need one.
That’s why experts exist. Because no one can be an expert at everything. So focus on what you can get really, really good at, and then get someone else who’s really, really good to help you with your gaps. That’s pretty much the point, right?
Nico Katzke: Absolutely. What I’ve found is also quite a nice tip that advisers should give their clients, especially, is to try to mentally… Because, as people, we compartmentalise things to make sense of the world. And so what you should ideally do is have two portfolios when it comes to investing.
One is long-term – kind of estate planning, retirement planning, etcetera, where you get that professional help. And then another part of your investment portfolio, you can actually use to play with that yourself.
So, have an EasyEquities account as an example. Buy a few ETFs, buy stocks, read Ghost Mail, try to find a nice stock pick, and play with that part of your portfolio where, if you lose some money, it’s not devastating.
But, making the right decisions with your long-term investment portfolio – that is where I mean you need to ‘set and forget’. That is where you should really be trying to get high exposure to risk assets, and then remain invested, because that’s the key.
And even if it’s R10,000, R5,000, just go play with it, right? And have fun, learn more about the markets. But your long-term investment approach – you should not be tinkering with that every month, or every day.
The Finance Ghost: No, exactly. It’s like taking a risk on redecorating a small part of your house as opposed to throwing everything out, then starting from scratch and seeing how well you do and whether or not you come right.
There is a lot to be said for just starting small – a small part of your garden, a small part of your house, baby steps at gym, as you say. Just go and play around in the markets with a piece of the money, and then make sure that the rest is paying you for time, because that’s a really good way to get paid in the market.
And of course, another good way to get paid in the market is diversification, right? That’s another classic example.
Nico Katzke: Absolutely. And another lesson that has become pertinently clear this year is the need to actually diversify your diversifiers. So, you mentioned at the top that we’re living in a topsy-turvy world. And in such a world, where there is a lot happening, information overload, a lot of uncertainty – in such a world, having appropriate diversifiers really helps investors stay the course.
And this applies in life more broadly. It always serves you to be well-diversified. Think about it with friends, hobbies, even upgrading your skills and ensuring you’re employable outside of your current role. It’s always a good thing to be diversified.
The only area I would probably say you should not be diversified is in romantic relationships and with your kids. I suppose there, it’s best to put your eggs all in one basket. But outside of that, spread your risk and always be on the lookout for improving your own diversification.
The Finance Ghost: You’re not taking the Alex Karp approach, Nico. No Alex Karp approach for you. What is it? ‘Regional monogamy’, I think, was the quote for him. You know, basically like, “I only have one partner per continent,” essentially. Global domination. Palantir, one of the more colourful companies.
Nico Katzke: I haven’t thought about that. I can guarantee you my diversification in the romantic landscape is global – I have zero diversification there. And I think that’s a good thing.
The Finance Ghost: Exactly. Highly concentrated. [laughing]
Nico Katzke: Yeah, I think so. Absolutely. So, all my eggs are in one basket there, and I think that’s a good thing. But outside of that, it’s always a good idea to just consider what might derail your current expectations – be it your employer status, or income, or whatever the case is.
Over the weekend, I was at a braai with friends, and one asked a really interesting question, out of the blue. He said, “What would you do if you were no longer able to apply your current trade?” And it’s actually more than simply a hypothetical question, because one needs to ensure that you’re not trapped in a role, right?
Really focus on your skills and interests, transcending your current day-to-day. Because we always get caught up in our day-to-day, but are you sure that your skills and what you can do can actually go beyond what you’re doing today? And that you’re able to navigate a future, of course, where skill requirements will likely be more fluid.
So, I really think we should all just stop and think about these things, right? If something upsets the apple cart and you need to pivot, are you able to do so? But it applies to more than just your personal and professional lives. It also relates very closely to investments.
The value of true diversifiers often, for investors, lies in soothing short-term fears and really helping investors stay the course. Because, to my earlier point, if you rewind the clock to just April this year, when markets corrected sharply. The best outcome would have been remaining invested, but having been diversified, you would not have experienced that pain so acutely.
So, investors really need to think about their own investment term. Have that chat with your adviser and then, within that portfolio, have diversifiers in place to make the journey a bit more palatable for you, especially if you’re keeping a close eye on your portfolio.
Then again, I kind of have to caveat there. As the adage goes, “If you want to protect what you have, you must diversify. But if you want to create, you actually need to concentrate.” Now, there is some merit in that, right?
So, once again, we need to consider your investment horizon. If you can remain invested for 10-plus years, you would probably want a very high exposure to risk assets such as equities or commodities. And in that scenario, the benefit of low-risk diversifiers will most likely be material only in managing your short-term anxiety, but it’s definitely going to come at the cost of long-term performance.
And so that is the balance that you need to find, right? Is having proper diversifiers in your portfolio, but then also asking yourself critically, “What am I willing to pay, in terms of insurance, to manage short-term volatility?” But just be cognisant that you’re not overpaying for long-term gain through risk assets.
The Finance Ghost: As a father of three, Nico, you certainly have shown that concentration strategies do lead to creation. So, well done on that front. But all jokes aside, you referenced there the tools of trade and what happens if you cannot apply your trade anymore and all of that.
There’s a bigger point there. Yes, diversify your diversifiers in the market, but also just always be alert to your income potential, long-term. Because I don’t care how good your investment strategy is. If you end up down a road where you run out of the ability to earn an income, it won’t matter how good your investments were, because you’re going to be in serious trouble.
So, while you’re spending time thinking about your portfolio, also make sure you’re spending time looking at the world around you, and in the industry you’re in. Especially at the moment, with everything going on in AI.
And of course, that leads us to this AI bubble – and I know that the use of the word ‘bubble’ is not something that you love particularly much, but that’s the term that is getting thrown around at the moment in the world of AI, isn’t it?
Nico Katzke: That’s another lesson – calling things ‘bubbles’ really doesn’t help. Now, we’ve heard it all this year, Ghost. Cryptos are in a bubble, gold is in a bubble, AI is in a bubble. Passive investing is in a bubble. I swear the Springboks’ success is also in a bubble, I suppose.
The Finance Ghost: Hey, hey, that’s controversial. That’s the most controversial thing you’ve said all year.
Nico Katzke: But it can’t all be right, right? Everything cannot be in a bubble. So, let’s maybe take a step back and unpack what we understand when we use the term ‘bubble’.
In my mind, ‘bubble’ refers to irrational pricing behaviour. With common examples including the dot-com crash in the early 2000s or even the tulipmania in the 1600s, where tulip bulbs literally sold for the value of houses. I mean, this is a plant being considered worth more than some houses. It was just a bizarre time.
But the key in labelling something as a ‘bubble’ in my mind is a recognition that hype has overtaken all sensibilities, and that prices reflect an urgency to gain exposure for the fear of missing out on the upside.
Now, the hype then causes further upward pressure and reinforces this positive sentiment. So, you can imagine this kind of self-creating loop where people are positive, the price goes up, they buy more, they get more positive, and so on, and so forth.
Now, the reality is we’re only ever able to label things as ‘bubbles’ after the fact. I recall an analyst saying many years ago on the radio that both Naspers and Kira at the time were clearly in bubble territory.
Naspers’s share price at the time, I think, topped R500 a share or something, and there were these dire warnings of an imminent price decline. Of course, in hindsight, this was clearly misplaced, right? The market was actually correctly pricing Naspers’s growth.
Another more recent example is Michael Burry. He is famous for profiting off the US housing market crash and predicting it, being the oracle of the market in 2008. But he’s since gone on – I don’t know, Ghost, you probably know the figures better – but he’s gone on to predict 15 of the last absolute zero crises.
The Finance Ghost: Yes, exactly. [laughing]
Nico Katzke: He was shorting both NVIDIA and Palantir this year, which has not turned out great for him, right?
The Finance Ghost: I actually did a podcast on him literally in the last week or so for Moneyweb, so I know exactly what you’re talking about. Because he has now started this whole Substack, and some of what he’s talking about is not news to anyone.
It’s like, “Oh, share repurchases by tech companies are not good for shareholders because they are really just reversing stock-based compensation.” Anyone who’s been reading a single set of American tech financials for the past five years knows that.
Nico Katzke: Exactly.
The Finance Ghost: So, it’s going to need some stronger arguments than that to make that work.
Nico Katzke: And, ultimately, you’re right. The price has maybe elevated beyond sort of where it reaches longer-term levels, but just calling things ‘bubbles’ is not helpful.
And I think it’s because markets tend to be remarkably resilient and efficient over time. Even the dot-com crash that I mentioned earlier – it simply preceded an era of enormous stock market growth, particularly in companies that succeeded in the internet age.
Now, were there failures? Of course. Sure. But many analysts, after the stock market correction, pointed to irrational behaviour and exuberance – wait for it – in companies being too enthusiastic in building the internet’s infrastructure, which included laying fragile fibre optic cables under the sea to enable this era of ‘global connectivity’.
But in hindsight, we’ve come to rely on this, right? And the technology is still here. I’m talking to you over the internet now, and our listeners are downloading this using the internet. So, naysayers wrote the obituary for an industry that, at the time, looked like it had died before it even matured.
And this is now, remember, early 2000s, the dot-com crash. A lot of analysts were saying, “Well, you know, we told you so. This was all hype, all bubble, no substance.”
But hindsight now perfectly shows us that the market was not irrational in valuing highly companies that would ultimately benefit from widespread internet adoption. It was simply a case of not all companies ending up being the winners.
I think there’s a lesson there, right? Labelling something as a ‘bubble’ creates fear among investors, who then view such industries or stocks as being irrationally priced. And so, at the end, it affects their behaviour, and they remain on the sidelines.
I think investors should instead be vigilant, but I would never recommend implying that markets are at any time irrational. That simply does not make sense to me.
Now, will there be pain from AI? Sure. I think some companies will certainly disappoint. Are valuations stretched today? I would probably be inclined to agree. But at the same time, I would point out that traditional accounting measures aren’t great at measuring the value of technology companies, right? And we’ve seen this.
So yes, it looks expensive based on fundamentals, but how relevant are those fundamentals as these companies are building the infrastructure for tomorrow’s AI world, in whichever way it matures?
So, I still think that building exposure to companies developing infrastructure in AI is a good idea, but – and here is maybe something that might be a bit controversial – gold and crypto, I’m less certain. Because both, for me, are assets whose value is intrinsically tied to sentiment and a need for storing wealth.
The functional value of both is not yet that clear to me, other than it’s store of value, which absolutely is a critical function, but one that is very cyclical in how markets perceive its information. And so, maybe there, the term ‘bubble’, I don’t know, if you want to use it? But even there, I’m less inclined to call things ‘bubbles’.
The Finance Ghost: Yeah, it is really interesting, and I mean, this is a year now in which people have actually jumped onto the gold bandwagon. And they’ve pointed to inflation, and they’ve pointed to the dollar, and we can talk about that now-now, and that’s done really well.
But as you say, it is, at the end of the day, a sentiment-driven asset class. Crypto certainly as well, without the benefit of the central bank buying, etcetera, etcetera, that gold enjoys.
And just to touch on that point you raised around the tech companies and the accounting, that’s absolutely right. So, for anyone who wants to go do some more reading on that, basically, the point is that more traditional industries, when they spend on capex, a lot of that goes onto their balance sheet.
They go and capitalise those assets. They depreciate them over time. It gives them a smoother earnings trajectory, whereas in tech, most of that R&D spend just gets expensed.
So, you end up with these situations where, in a period of significant investment in new technology or ramping up these teams, etcetera, the income statement takes a big knock. But they’re doing it so that they dominate with revenue in the next five years, for example.
In a traditional manufacturing-type company, you would not actually see that on the income statement. Everyone would be celebrating the fact that, well, they’re building up this asset base, etcetera.
So, people do sometimes underestimate the value on the actual balance sheet of these tech companies, and that’s why you sometimes see them trade at gigantic valuations versus the underlying accounting numbers and these big multiples.
Certainly not to say the big multiples are not a problem, because of course they can be. The point is, you’re not comparing like for like if you’re looking at an NVIDIA, for example, and a traditional company. The accounting doesn’t look the same.
It gets even worse when you get to very people-focused businesses like Meta and all of that, who are building out these huge systems where so much of it gets expensed.
Anyway, that’s enough accounting geeking out. I think let’s maybe then move on to – and I referenced it there, around gold, which is – what’s happened with the dollar.
That’s been another big focus this year, right? American excellence and US supremacy and all of that. Is that still a thing? Is it going to still be a thing?
Nico Katzke: That’s a very important lesson that we learned this year. That US hegemony is not a guarantee. And we actually need to start reimagining a world where the dollar and fair global trade are no longer a core feature of forecasting your business growth into the future.
Now, this kind of, let’s call it, ‘slide’ in the general psyche of the US’s central position in global trade. This, of course, has a bearing on the dollar’s reserve status, which in turn is bidding up the value of gold and crypto as alternative stores of value.
As people are becoming a bit more disillusioned by the stability of the dollar – I mean, the dollar has slid in value this year – and also maybe just asking questions about the fiscal sustainability trajectory, asking hard questions, people are finding comfort in actual physical gold, as well as alternatives like crypto. And I actually don’t believe this is completely irrational.
Let’s take a step back and ask why people are concerned today. So, I think if we strip it out to the basics, you’ve exchanged your labour, your time, your productivity for a currency, which is your claim on future goods and services. That’s why you go to work in the day.
Now, this works well as it removes our need to barter, of course, exchanging milk for bread and so on, and has allowed rapid societal development over time.
But if the currency that you have exchanged your time for is being debased and devalued due to inflation, that means the rand that you earned is not the same as the rand that you ultimately spend.
So, this is why inflation is often called ‘the silent killer’. You don’t feel it in your pocket over the short term, but it really makes a massive difference, or dent, in the value of what you exchange your time for over the long run.
This is also incidentally why the wealthy own very little cash. Their wealth is tied in assets typically (so real estate, equities, commodities, businesses, etcetera), where inflation does not really have that direct eroding effect.
Now, ultimately, this all means that wealth is transferred from savers, who are not well compensated for retaining their income – and what I mean by ‘saver’ is someone putting their money in the bank, under the mattress – and it’s transferred from those savers to asset holders as banks and governments continue to issue new debt (ironically, often to pay off existing debt), which in turn then devalues the currency.
So, if you think about this sort of roundabout circle of life at the moment, it’s certainly the case that those who are defensively positioned (i.e. the savers) are really losing out, and inflation is starting to make a big dent in that.
Now, one response to this is to hold as little of your wealth in assets tied to the dollar or the rand, for that matter, and instead to hold assets like gold or crypto. So, that’s why I said just a while ago, I don’t think it is irrational. And we’ve certainly seen a big shift towards these assets as a result of fiscal and debt pressures building up.
Even the US Treasury. If you look at it – $37 trillion of debt, 120% debt to GDP. Are these levels sustainable? And if not, then, well, what is the future prognosis of the value of the dollar?
But I don’t think holding gold and crypto only is the answer, as these are largely unproductive assets to hold. They don’t create anything of value. They should, in the long run, simply preserve value. There’s a big difference there.
Building your wealth should ultimately involve a productive element. And it would probably be why I would still prefer holding assets like equities for the long term. Gold doesn’t create anything. It’s shiny, but it’s a brittle element. We have mined enough gold to last us forever.
And so, it’s an interesting asset class and certainly adds diversity to your portfolio, but over the long term, I would still regard real assets as important for your portfolio.
So, notwithstanding all the concerns that people have – the debasing of their currencies, all these things, absolutely, I agree with that. But the answer probably lies in holding assets that are productive and that can grow, as opposed to holding cash or holding necessarily only crypto or gold.
The Finance Ghost: Yeah, and I think if you’re looking for something that gives you a yield along the way, that’s where property works really well. Specifically, for me, listed property. I always beat the drum that buying physical property yourself – all of the concentration-risk headaches and incredible costs of getting in and out and everything else – can be really difficult to actually make a proper return from.
It’s definitely better than not saving, and for some people, that is a really good forced save. To go and build up a property portfolio and have these bonds they need to pay. But that’s then a behavioural finance point alongside the actual finance point.
Whereas owning the REITs, for example. If you picked them properly, they’ve had a fantastic year. I’ve been very happy with a lot of my property positions on the JSE. It’s liquid, I can get in and out. There are great properties, very diversified. And really useful in a time of inflation, because again, these are real assets. They have replacement costs. They have underlying exposure, especially on the retail side – if you go and own shopping centres, then inflation goes up and so does the money going through the tills, which is great news for the landlord because it’s great news for the tenants. So, that’s a very powerful way to offset some of the inflationary risks.
Nico Katzke: Yeah, absolutely, and the benefit of that as well, if you hold property directly (so not in a REIT, but have a house or a flat), you can also enjoy those assets, right? Perhaps if you have a beach house or somewhere you like to go, there is also a utility value in actually having your money in those assets.
So, just being diversified as far as possible and having exposure to property, certainly, I agree with you. I think it’s a good idea.
And there’s another lesson this year that I have learned that we tend to unlearn as humans, and that is that we should avoid learning bad lessons. As humans, we have this ability to try and take lessons from our experiences. Which is generally a good thing – if you’ve learned that approaching a snake and it bites you hurts you, then great idea not to approach another snake, right?
But the trick is, I think, to differentiate when a lesson should be learned. One could easily have learned the lesson that investing is not safe in 2008 and that one should instead hold money in the bank, where it can’t lose value. But that lesson would have been incredibly costly since, and will likely be so over the next 17 years.
So, don’t learn bad lessons. It’s almost like (I think I’ve used it on this podcast before) the analogy of poker as well, right? If you get dealt a 2-7, a terrible hand, and the flop comes and out comes a 2, a 2, and a 7, and you have a full house.
Well, if you folded that 2-7, which is statistically the worst hand that you can be dealt, you should always fold that hand. And the fact that a 2 and a 2 and a 7 flop doesn’t mean that next time you get a 2-7 you should play it, right?
That’s a bad lesson. That’s the definition of a bad lesson. The outcome was random, right? And so, learning a lesson from that is a bad idea.
And so, I think as a society, we very often learn lessons. We look at the world, and we say, “Ah, see, I know I shouldn’t have invested in that. I know I should have bought that.”
And with crypto, I know a lot of people, personally, who feel they were interested in it, didn’t invest in it, and now have made large investments in it because they have learned the lesson that they missed out. We should think of the world more soberly than that.
And this kind of leads into another lesson, which is, I suppose, related in a way. We had a very interesting discussion recently, a team discussion, where the speaker was speaking about the sort of rise of cynics globally. And it got me thinking about – and there is – a difference between cynics and sceptics.
I think being sceptical is good. It’s always good. Don’t trust too easily. Ask the difficult questions, whether it is to your employer, your adviser. Those are fine. But being cynical seldom serves you well.
And our society has become quite cynical about various things, right? Quite polarised and cynical.
Now, cynics can be quick to adopt conspiratorial positions, as we know, and conspiracies often lead those people to be more manipulable and sucked into information feedback loops that can be quite counterproductive.
For example, believing that the system is somehow rigged or that governments will inevitably print vast amounts of money to dilute the value of your portfolio and so control you. I mean, I’ve heard it all, right?
Believing this, questioning the moon landing, or whether the earth is round, all of those are fine. You can question that. But it can actually have the effect of people making very bad real-life decisions and, in the process, missing out on sound long-term investment opportunities.
Now, this has, I believe, in no small part, bid up the value of crypto assets beyond any proven use case. Because that is a reality. What is the use case? How are we going to use this technology in our daily lives to the extent that it can be priced so highly, as it is currently priced?
Crypto absolutely appeals to a cynical mindset in that the world is inevitably going to implode, the value of fiat currency is going to go to zero, and so a lot of those people are bidding up crypto. Of course, I’m not saying everyone who holds crypto is a cynic, but it certainly feeds into that cynical mindset.
Now, if you happened to bet on the commonplace, let’s call it, ‘zeitgeist’ of cynicism that we currently face today, a decade ago, you have since enjoyed the value of crypto going up, and you would have been proven right and may yet be for some time still.
But I would still be quite cautious on betting long-term on stores of value without a proven use case. And this is, in my opinion, a more risky bet than longer-term betting that the global stock market will continue to innovate, continue to expand, and that we’re not going to see a complete currency debasement.
So, again, I’m not saying crypto should not be held in your portfolio, but I know a lot of investors have tied a lot of their wealth into crypto, have seen it grown, and so the lesson that they learned is that it is a good idea, that it should work, because we have this cynical mindset when it comes to the world at the moment.
The more we can replace cynicism with scepticism and a healthy questioning, and not sort of just believing that everything is rigged, I think that we’re going to be better for it. If we head in that direction.
The Finance Ghost: Yeah, I think what is important is to find what works for you, right? What is a natural fit for you? Because some people are naturally more cynical, others are more sceptical, and they recognise the danger, maybe, of being cynical. Others are naturally optimistic. Some are too optimistic.
You’ve got to find what works for you, and then you’ve got to learn what the weakness of that is, your particular personality type, and then just adjust for it over time.
And the only way to do that in the market is to try and to actually get out there, play around, take positions, and then, importantly, learn the correct lesson. As opposed to learning a bad lesson, which is worse than learning nothing, absolutely, because then you’re just taking it, and you’re saying, “Well, I learned something.” No, you didn’t. That was just a particularly weird outcome. If you keep applying that over time, you are going to hurt yourself.
So, there is some really, really good stuff coming through there.
And I guess as we start to bring this podcast home, I know one of the other points that is close to your heart is complexity, and that actually, complexity is not always your friend, right?
Nico Katzke: Yeah, a very important lesson that I learned this year as well, and a lot of advisers that are listening to this will be able to attest to this, is that the best portfolios are not always the most complex portfolios. And the reality is you can actually build quite sophisticated investment portfolios using very simple, low-cost building blocks.
There’s been a strong shift in our industry towards using terms like ‘AI’, ‘machine learning’, ‘deep learning’, and adding those to fund descriptions that sometimes make investors believe there is complexity involved in constructing portfolios, and that complexity in and of itself has value.
But at the JSE this week, where we celebrated 25 years of ETFs, it’s clear that we have had simple, low-cost building blocks that we can actually put together and create quite sophisticated portfolios.
I liken it to an analogy of playing with Lego. So, I have three boys, as you mentioned earlier. And the reality is, if you give them a Lego set with clear instructions, they can create quite complex creations using very simple, low-cost plastic building blocks.
There’s nothing complex about a Lego building block. But if you follow the manual and you actually put those blocks in the right order, you can create wonderful creations.
Now, of course, if I step on it and I break it and I take away your manual, yes, well, then you are left with cheap building blocks, and it might not be that easy to put something useful together.
And so, this is where I think an important thing to remember when it comes to investing and building your portfolio and investing for the long term, is to have this discussion with your adviser, right? Because they have the ability to use low-cost building blocks to actually create quite sophisticated portfolios that match your own investment term, your own risk-reward trade-offs, and that are designed to maximise your tax benefits and really create that wealth in your portfolio.
So, I would not recommend asking for complexity or wanting to see complex designs in your portfolio just for the sake of it. Oftentimes, the simplest solution gets the job done. If you look at the performance of ETFs over the last 12 months, some of the best-performing funds in our industry have been the simplest funds this last year.
Not to say that complexity cannot add value, of course, it can, but I wouldn’t just regard an investment process that is complex as necessarily good.
And so, maybe have that discussion with your adviser. Ask him or her, “Am I invested in low-cost investment vehicles that make sense, that add value, and am I putting these blocks together to create the Lego solution that is not only aesthetically feasible, but over the long term can actually create wealth in your portfolio?”
The Finance Ghost: Yeah, the Lego analogy is great. So, my kids also love Lego, obviously. I mean, I think all kids do, really. And there are these amazing YouTube channels that I found recently, one channel I think is called Brick Science, but there are a few of them. And they do robotics with Lego to kind of solve problems, and they’ll make it really fun.
They’ll try and sink a Lego ship using these different things they’ve built, or they’ll attack a Lego city using these different weapons they’ve built, like catapults and stuff. But all from scratch, just using Lego bricks and robotics. It’s really, really cool.
And some of the solutions they come up with are so simple to solve the problem, and it’s like, “That’s amazing!” And other times it’s this ultra-complex thing that failed. It’s no different when you are investing, and that’s definitely something to keep in mind.
It’s not about being clever. It’s about getting the best returns. The best return is the smartest return. That’s it. Over time, on a risk-adjusted basis, that’s the answer. No one cares how you got there. “Did you or did you not do well?” That’s the point.
And a big part of that is also just consistency, right?
Nico Katzke: Yeah, absolutely, and I wanted to add to that exactly that point. Consistency is key. So, look for the managers who have delivered consistently, not just recently, right?
If I can use a golf analogy. My golf game is such that every now and then I hit a blinder of a shot, perfectly down the middle, but I can promise you, I will not follow that up with another straight shot. And so, if you look at a fund manager’s performance, they might have just hit a great shot. But the question is more, “Can you repeat that over 18 holes?”
And so, look for managers who have performed consistently. Because they might not be the loudest in the market. Certainly, the ones who have performed more recently would be the loudest. But ask your adviser, and look at managers’ consistency, because that is incredibly hard to replicate and definitely gives you a higher probability of repeating that strong performance if consistent managers have been good as well.
The last lesson that I’ve learned is something that the Springboks actually taught me this year, and it’s that you can’t always please everyone. And if you want to be successful, you sometimes need to make very hard decisions.
Leaving out, for example, stars in your team to build depth is a risk and a hard decision, as you might be proven wrong in the short term. There might be short-term pain. Someone might say next week, “Ah, you should not have played this player.” This decision is a risk and a hard decision, but ultimately, this has built an enviable resilience in our Springbok team.
And I think the same applies to investment decisions. You sometimes get things wrong, other times get things right. But ideally, you shouldn’t dwell on past decisions, but instead focus on building long-term resilience in what you’re doing and in your portfolio. And knowing that that is the right thing to do, not just what is exciting or the most appealing in the short term.
The interesting thing that we can take from the Springboks rugby team – I don’t want to overstress the analogy – but a lot of our competitors are saying, “Well, South Africa has built this depth because they have that many players.”
It’s not that. England, France, many other nations have many players. It’s more a conscious decision that was made to do something that you know long-term is the right thing to do, but there may be pain in the short term.
I think when it comes to investing, you have to have the same mindset. Sometimes, yes, it’s painful investing in a long-term strategy, because you look at your mates, and you go, “Man, this guy has poured money into crypto. It’s up 30% – 40% over the last month.” And then you have that FOMO, because you look at your investment portfolio that’s kind of chugging along, and you go, “Oh, man, I missed this opportunity.”
And so, doing what you know is right – keeping an eye on the long term, focusing on what you pay, not overpaying for the strategies that you are investing, and consistently contributing to your investment portfolio and ideally, not touching it or tinkering with it in the short term, based on short-term news or short-term distractions – really just doing the right thing for the long term. That’s how you build resilience.
And then it doesn’t happen accidentally. It also doesn’t happen overnight. You have to really consciously decide to invest for the long term, do the right thing. And I promise you, over time, that’s what’s going to build reward in your portfolio.
The Finance Ghost: The sports analogy is good. I would highly recommend finding a manager who is nothing like my golf, because that will be a sad, sad journey for you and your money.
And the rugby analogy is good too, because the lesson, as we very recently learned, is that sometimes even your favourite stock, even that hero in your portfolio, can stick its finger in your eye and disappoint you, which is not great. Hence, diversification. Got to be careful with these things, right?
Nico, I think we’ve dealt with a lot of really, really cool concepts coming through here. And I guess just last question, conscious of time. This is so much for people to digest – and go back and listen to it again, and just really understand this stuff, because there has been a lot of good stuff coming through here.
We’re pretty much done with 2025. Next year is going to bring another fascinating year of insights that I certainly look forward to unpacking with you as the year develops. But perhaps, heading into the New Year, specifically from a Satrix perspective – and without giving away too much, or certainly sharing anything you are not supposed to share – what can we expect from the team in 2026, aside from just more good ETF stuff?
Anything specific that you can share with us? Or can we expect more of the same: 25 years of legacy and counting?
Nico Katzke: I think more of the same in terms of just bringing to market good value products and doing what we do exceptionally well (there’s always a temptation to just keep innovating, innovating, but at the end of the day, just keep doing what you are doing. If it works, it works), and even refining what we are doing.
So, we’ll definitely try to, for the next 25 years, repeat our success. But then, there are also quite a few exciting things coming to our market in the next year, so keep your eyes out for that.
We are definitely going to bring a few new ETFs to market. One that we recently announced is going to be a global property ETF. You mentioned property earlier. We’re going to bring to market a low-cost vehicle that allows you to invest in property ETFs globally – in other words, REITs companies.
And then there are a few other really interesting products that we’re going to bring to market or investment funds that I can’t speak to yet, but certainly, keep your eye on what we’re doing. There are some interesting things we’re going to bring to market.
The Finance Ghost: Absolutely, I can’t wait to see it. Nico, thank you so much for your time here. It really has been a treat chatting to you this year, as always. Enjoy your very well-deserved holiday with your wonderful family, and let’s do this again next year.
Nico Katzke: Absolutely. Thanks, and same to you, Ghost. Keep doing what you’re doing, keep enlightening us on the markets, and I look forward to chatting to you in the next year.
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