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PODCAST: No Ordinary Wednesday Ep125 | Capital meets reform – is South Africa investable again?

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South Africa’s reform momentum is becoming more visible, but so are the constraints that could stall it.

In this episode of No Ordinary Wednesday, Jeremy Maggs is joined by Rudi Dicks, Head of the Project Management Office in the Presidency; Martin Meyer, Head of Energy and Infrastructure Finance at Investec and Ayan Ghosh, Head of Cross-Asset Investment Strategy at Investec, to unpack the reality behind the narrative.

From energy gains to persistent bottlenecks in logistics and municipalities, the discussion examines whether progress is enough to sustain investor confidence and what still needs to shift for capital to follow.

Please scroll down for the transcript if you wish to read instead of listen.

Hosted by seasoned broadcaster, Jeremy Maggs, the No Ordinary Wednesday podcast unpacks the latest economic, business and political news in South Africa, with an all-star cast of investment and wealth managers, economists and financial planners from Investec. Listen in every second Wednesday for an in-depth look at what’s moving markets, shaping the economy, and changing the game for your wallet and your business.

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Transcript:

No Ordinary Wednesday Ep 125 – Capital meets reform: Is South Africa investable again?

[00:00:00] Jeremy: South Africa’s economic reform story is no longer about intent, it’s about delivery.

This time last year, government committed over one trillion Rand to public infrastructure investment, the largest allocation of its kind in South Africa’s history.

The focus is on water, energy, freight logistics and ports, because these sectors form the bedrock of the economy and determine whether goods move, industries operate and investment flows.

For investors, three anchors matter most: sustained monetary discipline, fiscal consolidation, and reforms implementation.

This is No Ordinary Wednesday, our in-depth look at what’s driving markets, shaping the economy and changing the game. I’m Jeremy Maggs. In this episode we look at how far South Africa is on its reform journey.

The sentiment at Investec’s second SA Economic Reforms Conference was cautiously optimistic with key stakeholders from government, business, and civil society acknowledging infrastructure decline has been arrested and stabilisation achieved.

But the far harder phase, execution at scale, now begins. And the country’s reform ride is made bumpier by an increasingly uncertain global environment.

Rising geopolitical tensions, particularly between the US and Iran, are raising the risk of renewed inflation.

That matters for South Africa because it directly affects capital flows, interest rates, and the cost of funding infrastructure.

To discuss what progress has been made, where bottlenecks remain, and what it will take to unlock large-scale private investment, I’m joined by:

Rudi Dicks, Head of the Project Management Office in the Presidency

Martin Meyer, Head of Energy and Infrastructure Finance at Investec

And Ayan Ghosh, Head of Cross-Asset Investment Strategy at Investec

So Ayan, I’m going to start with you and are we seeing, in your opinion, a genuine shift in investor sentiment towards South Africa, or do you think this is still cautious optimism given this very volatile and tricky global backdrop?

[00:02:10]

Jeremy: So Ayan, I’m going to start with you and are we seeing, in your opinion, a genuine shift in investor sentiment towards South Africa, or do you think this is still cautious optimism given this very volatile and tricky global backdrop?

Ayan: Thanks Jeremy for inviting me to the conversation. As you mentioned, I think this is very much a cautious optimism at this point. What is very interesting to us is when you look at the foreign equity ownership for South Africa that’ has increased to 32.7% in February 2026. That’s the prestart of the war from 26.6% in January 2025.

That reflects more than a 20% increase and possibly the best uplift in the past decade. In terms of foreign investor interest in SA, we also did a bit of work, which shows a sustained uplift in South Africa’s gross fixed capital formation to 4%, alongside a step-up in South Africa’s real GDP to 2.5. That would represent a meaningful inflection point in SA’s growth cycle and earnings visibility.

And that’s possibly the catalyst for renewed foreign investor interest in South Africa. Critically achieving this is contingent on credible and sustained reforms implementation. I hope that answers your question.

[00:03:15] Jeremy: It does indeed. Rudi, let me bring you into the conversation. At Investec’s SA Economics Reform Conference, you describe reform as, and I quote, “uneven and noisy but tangible.” What are the clearest signs in your opinion then, Rudi, that reform is starting to take hold?

Rudi: Well, I think probably building on what Ayan is saying, certainly the sort of sentiment, the sort of confidence that is there, the ability for investors to believe in us and that the sort of empty promises that have been made and never follow through are actually done, and you could pick that up in the reform programs. Energy for instance., a lot of work that has been done to unlock firstly in load shedding. Secondly, creating a competitive market and setting the rules for that competitive market.

What we know, for example, is that the reforms that we’ve introduced in that sector potentially has over R400 billion worth of investment in renewable energy or alternative energy outside of Eskom generation, similar in ports and rail, I think for us to be able to stitch up the Durban Container terminal with a private sector partner, hopefully we see results quicker than what we’ve seen previously.

You know, with that private sector partner improving the performance of that port, but certainly the point around third-party operators and private sector operators on the rail network. Our intention to go to market around with a number of other private sector deals within the rail and ports space. This is going to be quite an important part of what we are doing.

And I think these are the sort of confidence measures that are important. Those are the real things that show that the reform program can work and that we are wanting to attract private investment. Important thing about this is getting to sectors of the economy that we haven’t really seen private sector investment there, where there’s been monopolies, you know, incumbents like Eskom, incumbents like Transnet.

We’ve got to open up that space. We’ve got to allow for private investment and that’s what’s going to do the trick for us, in getting the sort of confidence and getting investment going.

[00:05:11 Jeremy: So Martin, energy is arguably the most advanced reform area. How would you describe where we are currently from an energy reform perspective?

And I guess most people would want to know whether that word load shedding is going to darken our doors again, we hope not.

Martin: Jeremy, when we talk reform, I can safely say that the energy sector has been leaps ahead of all the other infrastructure reforms in the country. We haven’t seen load shedding in almost a year, and Eskom can be sitting on a reserve energy margin of in excess of 5 gigawatts.

I believe at the moment we’ve seen and continue to see significant investment from the private sector with over 10 gigs of renewable energy generation already contracted for. This is a very, very large investment into the sector. We’re still seeing a number of renewable energy projects coming to market, but the pace has slowed considerably.

What we are seeing is a big market shift from the predominantly government-led projects of five or so years ago to market where the private sector and specifically energy traders, are the biggest buyers of renewable power from new projects.

We are now seeing a situation where new projects are being led by the private sector first and bilaterally, and subsequently, we’re seeing the energy traders buying majority of the power that’s coming out of these projects. This is on the back of government shift from the single buyer model to a multi-buyer multi seller model.

This began with sort of removing the licensing threshold for private generation some four to five years ago, and will further evolve as trading rules in the trading market take shape. The emerging trader market is particularly exciting as this should drive further reforms. As the market moves to competitive wholesale traded market, we anticipate first stages of the wholesale traded market to kick off later this year, and it’s very, very encouraging to see the regulatory framework required for our energy market taking shape. In addition, we’re seeing significant amounts of battery energy storage being built, which enables efficient storage of excess power. So we are now able to store the excess energy generator during daylight hours and release it into the grid when it’s most needed during peak usage periods. This doesn’t necessarily mean

load sheddings over, but the energy market has come a long way since the beginning of load shedding, and we should be nowhere near the level of load shedding we saw two to three years ago.

[00:07:29] Jeremy: So let me pick you up on two things. One is new projects, but risk associated with that. So we’ve got something in the region of. 2 trillion rand in planned generation. A lot of talk about major grid expansion. Surely there is a danger that transmission now becomes a key bottleneck.

 Martin: Jeremy transmission is the biggest single issue in rolling out renewable energy at scale. As I mentioned earlier, we’ve seen a slowdown in the pace of renewable energy projects coming to market, which is largely due to various conditions that need to be met before projects are able to connect to the grid.

These conditions are largely related to the inefficiency of the grid as it stands today and the immediate need for grid strengthening and expansion. In addition, there’s no grid capacity in the North-Western Cape. These are the best parts of the country for renewable energy, and there is a significant number of projects waiting for new lines in order to evacuate power.

That said, Eskom has announced plans to roll out in excess of 14,000 kilometers of transmission lines over the next few years. That requires up to R450 billion with new capital to successfully get it right. The first phase for just over a thousand kilometers is already in the market, and we’ve seen a very good appetite to invest in this program, with many international and local players bid for the projects.

The program does seem to be slightly delayed, and I suspect this is due to a delay in getting the credit enhancement required for the projects to be finalised. The World Bank, together with the National Treasury, is putting together a guarantee product, which will negate the need for the National Treasury to stand behind Eskom’s obligations in each of these projects.

The DOE integrated resource plan prioritizes transitioning from coal to renewables and requires in excess of 18 gigawatts of new renewable energy power by 2030. This can only be achieved if we see more urgency in rolling out the required grid strengthening and expansion. Should we see delays in rolling out this transmission, we are going to see huge bottlenecks in meeting our key objectives.

[00:09:19] Jeremy: Ayan and Rudi, I’m coming to you in just a moment, but Martin, very quickly, the focus is also going to be a shift towards how we bring electricity inflation down over the next couple of years. Are you confident that the current reform path that you and Rudi referred to can actually achieve this?

Martin: So Jeremy, there are two factors that need to be considered here.

Do you have the integrated resource plan or RRP as it’s commonly known, and the South African wholesale energy market. The RRP presents a plan to transition away from coal in the most economical way possible, while still obviously being cognisant of the fact that sustainability and social effects need to be taken into account.

As mentioned earlier, there’s a large requirement for renewable energy and RRP with renewable power being comparatively cheap at the moment. In addition, there’s a requirement for gas-fired power, which is more expensive, but is necessary for balancing the power system as it can be ramped up quickly to deal with sudden shifts in demand.

Gas is also cleaner than coal and diesel, so it has a transitional angle to it. We must ever be careful not to overbuild and rather use gas to transition to a renewable-dominant power system. Then there’s always the controversial subject of nuclear power. Nuclear power is part of the RRP and is the cheapest form of base load, given the life of the asset, which often spans over 60 years. However, it does come at a high upfront cost and plenty of regulatory hurdles.

We see this as part of a 10 to 15-year plan if feasible at all. But more importantly, and linking it to the new build of cost-effective power, SAWEM is creating a competitively traded multi-buyer, multi-seller energy market, which will better reflect efficient market pricing. This results in a pricing system, that better reflects the true cost of generation. This should therefore result in cheaper generation being dispatched first and then slowly move up the generation cost curve to a more expensive power ss demand grows. As the power is traded in the open market, simple market economics will drive pricing down, and we should see a material decrease in energy inflation in the medium to long term as a result of this implementation. We are all very excited to see how this comes to fruition.

[00:11:18] Jeremy: So Ayan, let’s talk a little bit about consequences if we can.

If South Africa’s energy supply is reliable and pricing for industrial users comes down, obviously our mining sector would be well positioned to take advantage of increasing demand, I guess, for critical minerals. Could you explain the significance of this opportunity to me?

Ayan: Thanks Jeremy. And as Martin mentioned, I think energy reforms in South Africa is no longer about ensuring the security of supply.

It is increasingly central to anchoring the next phase of industrialisation. South Africa has some of the world’s largest reserves of critical minerals as we know, and it’s tied to the energy transition, including PGMs, manganese, vanadium, creme, titanium, and rare earths. When you look at some of these World Bank estimates, that suggests that demand for these key energy transition minerals could rise by four to six times from current levels by 2040 or 2050.

With some metals like lithium and cobalt, seeing even steeper increases. In that backdrop, reliable and competitively priced electricity changes the economics of mining. Lower predictable tariffs, improve margins at mines and make brownfield expansions more financeable. I think South Africa’s mineral endowment together with some of this large-scale grid investment that Martin’s talking about, positions South Africa very well to capture this critical minerals upcycle over the next two decades.

[00:12:51] Continuity : We’ll continue with this episode of No Ordinary Wednesday in just a moment, but first a word from our sponsors. Investec’s Energy and Infrastructure team supports infrastructure projects across Sub-Saharan Africa.

The team provides financing solutions and specialist financial services to businesses, governments, and public-private partnerships, bringing together financial and technical expertise across energy, transport, water, and social infrastructure. Find out more in the podcast notes or search for Investec energy and infrastructure.

[00:13:25] Jeremy: Alright, let’s move to freight logistics now, as I think it is the very heart of our country’s growth story, really at the Economic Reforms conference, Juanita Maree, Chief Executive of the Southern African Association of Freight Forwarders, said 65% of South Africa’s GDP is exposed to trade. Given the importance of the performance of ports, rail and corridors to South Africa’s macroeconomic success. Maybe explain to us the mixed bag of results on this reform roadmap. Maybe we can start with the good and then sort of move down the scale if we can.

Rudi: I mean, the problem is that, let’s be frank, let’s talk about the most important part.

So if you’re starting from pit to port, you’ve got to remove those goods from the pit, right? And that network is not up to standard. It’s been degraded. There’s been a lack of CapEx investment in the freight rail network, and that’s for a whole series of different reasons that we can discuss Jeremy.

But the fact of the matter is that we’ve got to bring that up to standard. Bringing that up to standard means that you’re able to open up the network transit freight rail. Third-party operators are able to ensure that they can compete with one another and move goods. That also makes costs much more competitive because, as it is a large chunk, 70% of our volumes that are, for example, moving between the most congested route is between city deep and Durban.

We’ve got to take a lot of those goods, containerised goods, and put them onto the rail. So circular I think there’s an important incentive to be able to reduce that cost for us to be able to do that. Then, then of course. There’s the importance of ensuring that being reduced competition within the port space.

Again, Durban Container Port Terminal, for example, is still the largest in Africa, and therefore you’ve got to invest significantly in infrastructure, in technology, you know, shipped to shore cranes, rubber tire gantries. They’ve got to be more efficient.

You’ve got old technology that’s there, you’ve got old cranes that are there. Those are going to be important things that I think about TFR and the industry is looking at. The challenge that we’ve got to do is that all our indicators are, as you say, let’s move on to the bad parts, which are all terrible, you know, where do we raise the money from to be able to ensure that we can invest in both rail and ports?

And that’s where the private sector comes in. That’s why we’ve got to think very differently. Traditionally, what we would’ve done. Go out to the market, borrow money, Martin and Ian would convince the debt component of the firms and buy up the bonds. We got to think about how we do this very differently with private sector operators where we potentially can concession it, think about how they can operate and run a more efficient port or rail corridor, for instance.

And that’s the important part of how I think the reform master can be moving in that direction. We issued, for example, a request for information during the course of last year on three key corridors, the manganese iron core, the Natcore, and then of course the coal corridor. And there’s been a significant amount of interest from both local and international operators in that space.

And certainly what we’ve got to do is take the next logical stack and actually go to market. Pretty much the same thing that you’ve done for .This is all the same stuff that you’ve got to do, and I think that’s going to be an important part for us to be able to do.

Geographically, we are the worst possible place, right? But now, given the sort of geopolitics, it depends on what happens. Many ships would have to pass our shore. We’ve got to find a mechanism of making a genuine regional hub in South Africa. And that potential is there. And for us to be able to, you know, secure some of those shipping routes that come past our shore, but never dock here.

[00:16:49] Jeremy: So encouraging Ayan but not all good news. So Rudi really back to you, national government and or central government, what is it doing to hasten the speed of reform and maybe make up for South Africa being a bit of a laggard on the continent for port and rail concessions?

Are you moving at a swift enough past, do you think?

Rudi: I suppose that many in the private sector would critique us for not moving fast enough. But to be frank, I think there are complexities in some of these deals. We have not done them ever before and I think we’ve got to get them right. They’re quite also highly competitive.

There are many interested parties who want to do this. Let me just give you one example. The Durban container terminal two, we’d spent an amount of time getting it to market, getting the RP correct, and it was contested in court and that put us out by another two more years. Eventually, of course, I think that since the prevailing and during the latter part of last year, the applicant who had contested this had agreed that the final judgment out of the high court was accepted and they would move ahead. So I do think that these are the sort of risks that are there. What we’ve got to do is design it sufficiently so it’s bankable.

That’s the most important part. And Ayan’s point about having a rules-based tariff access rules, these are quite critical. Because if you don’t set that out from a regulatory point of view, from the outset, they’re not bankable. You know, you can’t go to a bank and say, look, I need funding for this if the rules are not clear or if projected revenues are ahead or not very clear on how they’ll be derived.

So I, I do think that these are going to be an important, so we’ve got to spend as a sort of state or regulating this instance, we got to spend an amount of time in designing it correctly, or they fail. We’ve got good examples of them. By the way Transnet has, for instance, issued RFPs and they’ve not always succeeded, and that’s the critical thing.

We’ve also got to think through how we deal with this in a different way. I mean, there is this the view that perhaps we should go for the sort of Durban Container Terminal kind of PSP’s because the design of PSP’s is quite an important part Jeremy. You could design it where you sell off an equity stake, which is what we’ve done at Durban Container Terminal Two.

I don’t think that’s the efficient way of trying to get into a partnership. In a view, I think that that much of what we think of in OV is a concession. Give a long-term concession. Let the operator decide on how best they will run, whether it’s a rail corridor, whether it’s a port. Let them decide on that because I think that in itself is a better and more efficient way, and there are ways that you can recover ofcourse, concessioning fees upfront, you know, returning the asset to a better state than what it was before. And we’ve seen that concession models do work. We’ve got good concession models in South Africa. The road network is a good concession model where Sanral has given out long-term concessions to road operators.

So I think we’ve got to just make sure that we design these things correctly. We’ve got to make sure that it’s bankable. We have to have an iterative process with the banks, with different stakeholders to make sure that everyone is satisfied and that we then go to market. So I suppose the, the business colleagues or the private sector guys will say, you slow.

I would rather say can we get it bankable…

[00:19:37] Jeremy: Ayan, let me use a word from a very famous movie “show me the money”. We’ve seen increased private sector participation in the system as Rudy was alluding to. What factors do you think are then enabling the much needed investment in ports and rail and to his point, I mean, which corridors do you think would benefit the most?

Ayan: Thanks, Jeremy. I think after years of stalled progress, what we are beginning to finally see is institutional capacity being rebuilt in South Africa, and regulatory frameworks being clarified, and hopefully that should lead to a growing pipeline of private sector involvement emerging across some of the corridors that Rudi mentioned.

I think while we are in the early stages process for this to scale. What I do think is needed is private operators and some of the financiers of this reform program need predictable rules of the game. Clear tariff structures, access rights, rewards and penalties in the right way, and some of these dispute resolution mechanisms.

It’s very clear that private sector participation in container terminals is beginning to progress. What we also heard at the conference is some of these iron ore exporters led by Kumba are pushing for an integrated session to Saldana concession, and that spans from the pit to the port, the full value chain.

And hopefully that becomes a template for corridor-based concessions more broadly. So yeah, I think we are in the early stages. We remain hopeful, but at the same time, what I must admit is the weakest link here remains local government where you’ve got municipal balance sheets that are very stressed, service delivery that’s inconsistent, and infrastructure maintenance that has been repeatedly crowded out.

Stabilising these municipalities is essential if the broader

00:21:40 Jeremy: Alright, so Rudi, let’s bring in water now because it’s increasingly looking like South Africa’s Achilles heel when it comes to reform. Around 59% of municipalities are effectively insolvent. How urgent then is this crisis? And maybe tell us what you think the government can do at a national level where you sit to restore some degree of confidence and I guess functionality.

Rudi: It’s a tricky one because let’s break up water, right? There’s bulk water, right, or raw water as it is, and that in itself is some area that I think we’ve made some significant progress. We’ve established, of course, a national water resource infrastructure agency. That’s an important step to be able to ensure that we can lock in private investment at a bulk water level.

Also, regulatory rules are important, for example, around how we deal with pricing raw water. The biggest constraint of water right now is not there. The biggest constraint is at a distribution level, and as you said, at the municipal level. Of the 144 water services providers, that’s 144 across the municipal system, 105 of them do not comply with the most basic conditions and that is the drop reports, blue drop, green drop, and no drop reports. And basically, those pre-reports are; blue drop is water quality. Green drop relates to wastewater treatment, and the no drop is non-revenue water -how much water leaks without us being able to know that.

So those are the drop reports, and certainly I think what we see in the latest report of the drop reports is that it’s gotten worse. So we’ve got to do an intervention. Why I say it’s complex is because municipalities have different sets of powers and functions relative to provincial and national government, right? that’s their competency of work. You can’t do something similar as we’ve done in Transnet or in Eskom. You got to use the particular provisions of the law, section 139, even if you want to intervene, or you got to develop an intergovernmental framework and relations to be able to deal with some of these things.

It’s a bit more complex, but we got to address it, a crisis, for example, in Johannesburg, crisis in many of the 105 municipalities where there’s no service provisions that are effectively compliant to the standards that we’ve set. One of the things that we have introduced and the president has made this really clear in the state of the nation was that the water services act, for example, is going to be amended, and the water services act basically says that if we do not comply with water quality, water standards and no drop, then you are going to take away your license. So we’ve introduced a licensing regime pretty similar to what NERSA does for energy, you know, so the National Energy Regulator has a licensing regime for all licensees, whether you are at a wholesale or at a retail level, this will be the same things.

And if a water service provider and authority doesn’t comply with the, with the water licensing provision, that license will be taken away.

[00:24:14] Jeremy: Ayan having said that, water though would be an underinvested infrastructure opportunity surely, maybe it would be useful for us if you were to expand on the risks and the opportunities again, from where you sit from an investment perspective.

Ayan: I think when you look across Africa and in South Africa as well, the water sector represents a systemic macroeconomic risk and a significant under-invested infrastructure opportunity. Water is simultaneously a constitutional right and a critical production input where two-thirds of the water usage is concentrated in agriculture, and that directly links to food security and to inflation as well.

We’ve seen performance deteriorating across multiple dimensions, and that includes supply, reliability, water quality, financial sustainability, and governance across most municipalities. The financial distress is very much widespread with more than 50% of municipalities effectively insolvent. We think that the private sector participation in the water reform space has been constrained by below-cost tariffs, weak utility creditworthiness, political resistance, and regulatory uncertainty. That said, billions of rands in water and sanitation could be unlocked should some of these projects be ring-fenced and tariffs are cost reflective.

What also may be important is, as Rudi mentioned, reducing usage of some of this non-revenue water in the whole process.

[00:25:47] Jeremy: Gentlemen, a lot to digest and I want to start bringing this conversation to an end and maybe one final question to all of you. And that’s the one constraint that, if resolved, would unlock large-scale private investment into South Africa’s infrastructure reform project.

And maybe let’s go back to you, Martin.

Martin: So for me, Jeremy, and both Rudi and Ayan have touched on it, it’s one word, it’s municipalities. For me, the structural issues within municipalities, the bankability of municipalities, are really hindering a lot of infrastructure development within the urban sector.

What we are seeing in the transmission space with the credit guarantee vehicle is a very exciting space. The thinking is that the credit enhancement to Eskom will then be rolled out into municipalities, which will then make a lot of the municipal projects or PPPs bankable. For me, it’s bankability Jeremy. If we can come up with a solution to make municipalities bankable, I think we’re going to see a major shift in reform in the country.

Jeremy: Rudi.

Rudi: Martin is spot on. If I could disclose the sort of project pipeline that exists in the municipal space, that’s where the trillion rand worth of investments that we can unlock, right? And the significant opportunities in roads, in civil, in other parts of civil, in water, in energy distribution, for example, are significant.

You, you got to design it so that we think through away from a traditional model where the state or conditional grants pay for that. How do we develop and create bankable projects that allows for the private sector to come into water or electricity distribution and that I think there’s a significant project pipeline as I say, we’ve got to get it to bankability, and that for me is the most important part, and that’s what can unlock the sort of growth that we require in our economy.

Jeremy: And Ayan, all of this against the backdrop of politics and we do have a transitioning political landscape in this country. From one party dominance to coalition politics, do you think we will see an increase in transparency and in performance accountability?

Ayan: Thanks Jeremy and I completely echo Martin and Rudi’s views. As you mentioned, the political fragmentation in South Africa has posed serious risks to stability and service delivery over the past decade. Against this backdrop, I think the GNU is a potential turning point in South Africa’s political trajectory.

It signals respect for the constitution, a new level of political maturity and cross-party cooperation, all of which help to lower perceived political risk in South Africa. Under the GNU. what we’ve achieved in South Africa is a credible macroeconomic framework, disciplined monetary policy, a GNU-endorsed budget, and hopefully planned fiscal anchors going forward.

The GNU does provide the political umbrella for structural reforms as Rudi and Martin have mentioned before. What is increasingly clear is looking forward, is the South Africa’s reform agenda is biased towards reorienting the economy towards its cross fixed capital formation and prioritising productive investment over consumption ultimately, and we continue to hope this will uplift South Africa’s GDP growth to 3% over the next 5 to 10 years. While the reform journey is far from complete, this does give us a sense of direction and critically a sense that investors are starting to notice and hopefully foreign investors reprice South Africa accordingly in the next 5 years.

[00:29:17] Jeremy: And that is where we are going to leave it and that brings this episode of No Ordinary Wednesday to a close. Martin Rudi and Ayan thank you very much indeed for joining me. Remember, a new episode of this series drops every fortnight. To ensure you don’t miss out search for Investec Focus Radio SA wherever you get your podcasts and hit the follow button.

Until next time, goodbye from me, Jeremy Maggs, and the entire Focus Radio team.

[00:29:57] Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the contributors at the time of publication and do not necessarily represent the views of the firm and should not be taken as advice or recommendations. Investec Limited and subsidiaries authorised financial service providers, registered credit providers, and long-term insurer.

Ghost Bites (Aimia | Schroder European Real Estate | Tharisa)

An opportunity to learn about Aimia (JSE: AII)

This is Rhys Summerton’s new kid on the block on the JSE

Rhys Summerton is the CEO of iOCO (JSE: IOC), one of the very few companies on the JSE that gives guidance based on free cash flow per share. Summerton is a capital allocator, so he gets traditional investors excited.

Aimia, an offshore company run by Summerton as executive chairman, recently executed a rather quiet listing on the JSE. I’m not sure what the exact plan is here, but people don’t implement new listings for no reason.

In a management information circular released for the AGM, there’s a really interesting letter from Summerton that gives information on the group.

Here are some great nuggets as we start to build familiarity with Aimia:

  • Aimia has been a public company for 20 years, beginning life as Air Canada’s frequent flyer program. After an initial frothy period and some exciting acquisitions, it nosedived during the Global Financial Crisis and spent years clawing its way back. It never actually recovered to the pre-crisis highs, as absolute disaster hit the company in 2017 when Air Canada elected not to renew the commercial agreement.
  • What followed was a period of multiple management changes, litigation with investors, fights over operational control and eventually a few more acquisitions for good measure. It’s quite a spicy history for a company that basically started out as a loyalty club!
  • Summerton became chairman on 27 March 2025. This led to the company being divided into four investment categories, one of which was its tax losses of $1.1 billion. Ever seen a tax loss segment before? Me neither.

So, what do they hold today, other than the tax losses?

Well, I should note that one of the other investment categories is the Holdco, which holds cash, debt and a small stake in Clear Media and other companies. Summerton has promised that Holdco costs will be reduced to below 1.5% of net asset value (NAV). It looks like they are also monetising the small stuff.

This leaves us with two other investment categories.

The first is Bozetto, an Italian specialty chemicals business which is currently being disposed of. The company needs cash to grow, something that Aimia isn’t in a position to provide. Net proceeds of $265 million to $271 million will be realised through this sale.

The second is Cortland, a rope and net manufacturer. Tariffs have been a difficult issue, but the company has put in a resilient performance nonetheless. They are sorting out the management structure, as the top execs are quite literally sprinkled around the world. I’m all for a hybrid working environment, but I agree with Summerton’s assessment of the current structure being “clumsy” – with execs based in Norway, the US, Canada and India! They are centralising the management team in the US.

If this has piqued your curiosity, then you’ll love the entertaining letter. It even makes reference to Remgro and quotes Jesus, albeit in different contexts! I think it’s worth reading in full.

What does the future hold? Well, the combination of a fresh listing on the JSE and the planned inflow of cash from Bozetto probably isn’t a coincidence. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if we see some local acquisitions by Aimia. Either that, or Summerton has come here in search of capital.

What are your initial views here?

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Aimia - something fresh, or another disappointment loading?

How do you feel about the Aimia opportunity?


Schroder European Real Estate’s valuation is still under pressure (JSE: SCD)

Does the portfolio have too many single-tenant buildings?

Another quarter, another decrease in the portfolio valuation at Schroder European Real Estate. This time, it’s down 0.7% between December 2025 and March 2026. That’s a material decrease over just three months, particularly in hard currency!

“Hard” is the word at Schroder, as they always seem to be dealing with some issues in the portfolio. These often relate to tenants either being in financial difficulty or simply vacating premises in the ordinary course of business, leaving Schroder with buildings that aren’t as easy to fill as you might expect.

Each quarter, there are bright spots and concerns in the portfolio. This is normal. The challenge at Schroder is that the negatives tend to outweigh the positives, with the share price down 15.2% in the past year. I appreciate that it’s not a direct comparison, but the Satrix Property ETF (as a proxy for the broader sector) is up 28% over the same period:

That is severe underperformance vs. the sector.


Tharisa begins the transition to underground mining (JSE: THA)

The latest quarter reflects a dip in PGM output due to lower grades

Tharisa, the PGM and chrome group, has released production results for the three months ended March 2026. This represents the second quarter of the 2026 financial year.

PGM production of 34.3 koz was down 11.6% vs. the quarter ended December 2025. If we take the six months for the year thus far, then production of 73.1 koz was 17% higher year-on-year. With PGM prices coming in so much higher than before, that’s good news for investors, even if the latest quarter was a slight disappointment.

The dip in PGM production on a quarter-on-quarter basis was due to a substantial 29.6% decrease in the reef mined during the period. They attribute this to “in-pit constraints” in the operations. Recovery rates were only slightly down, thankfully.

Chrome production was up 15.6% quarter-on-quarter, so that’s strong momentum. If we take the six-month view, production was flat year-on-year. Chrome prices are also up nicely though, so shareholders will still benefit from growth in chrome revenue.

Tharisa is taking a huge step forward with the transition into underground mining. They are looking to invest more than $500 million over the next decade at the Tharisa Mine, based on over 60 years of underground mining potential.

The Karo Platinum project in Zimbabwe is also making progress, with various workstreams underway. They are targeting first ore in mill in the second half of 2027.

The group’s net cash balance of $54.7 million is 16.4% higher than the $47 million balance as at the end of December 2025.

Full-year production guidance is set between 145 koz and 165 koz for PGMs. They are on 73.1 koz at the halfway mark in the year. For chrome, the target is 1.50 Mt to 1.65 Mt of chrome concentrates. They are sitting on 0.75 Mt after six months.

So far, so good then.


Nibbles:

  • Director dealings:
    • A prescribed officer of Absa (JSE: ABG) sold shares worth R5.6 million.
  • The new era of Mr Price (JSE: MRP) is upon us – the board has resolved to provide up to R200 million in financial assistance to foreign subsidiaries. The share price is still in the toilet after the shock of the NKD transaction announcement.
  • RMB Holdings (JSE: RMH) announced that the Competition Tribunal has approved the offer by AttBid. There have been many juicy discussion points around this transaction, but the competition regulator has never come up as a potential stick in the mud. I’m not surprised at all to see an easy approval here.
  • One of the funnier things you’ll see on SENS is a reference to “disinterested directors” – and no, this has nothing to do with whether they would rather be playing golf. This means that they don’t have a commercial interest in the contract being discussed. In the latest example, the disinterested directors of Salungano Group (JSE: SLG) resolved to extend CEO Robinson Ramaite’s term by another 12 months to 31 March 2027.
  • A change to the lead independent director of a company is always worth noting. Anel van Niekerk has resigned from this role at Copper 360 (JSE: CPR). A new lead independent director hasn’t been announced yet.
  • Sasol (JSE: SOL) debt holders responded strongly to the company’s tender offer to repurchase 8.750% notes due in 2029. Sasol is happy to repurchase up to $334 million in notes, and the market has already validly tendered $533 million in notes. For context, the principal amount outstanding on these notes is $1 billion.
  • We are seeing a very similar story at AngloGold Ashanti (JSE: ANG), with the company looking to repurchase up to $650 million in notes of various types. This means that there is an acceptance waterfall with different priority levels for the various notes. AngloGold has received almost $1.1 billion in tendered notes, so the cap will come into play. But only $558 million of priority 1 notes have been tendered, so the mix of acceptances might still change.

Ghost Bites (ASP Isotopes | Emira – Octodec | RMB Holdings | Sirius Real Estate)

ASP Isotopes has a make-or-break year ahead (JSE: ISO)

They need to demonstrate commercialisation of key products

ASP Isotopes released a detailed business update to the market. This includes a $300 million EBITDA target for 2031 – essentially a five-year plan for the group.

With product revenue of just $5.7 million in 2025 and an attributable net loss of $175.1 million, there is a long way to go. The share price has been under significant pressure, so the company needed to give the market something to feel good about.

The thing that really matters is this line from the business update: “First commercial shipments expected across multiple isotopes in 2026”. As you’ll see further down, 2026 is going to be the make-or-break year for this business.

To support the business along this growth path, the balance sheet has $333 million in cash. During 2025, they raised $345 million through stock and convertible notes. The market will probably keep supporting the capital raises for as long as ASP Isotopes can show meaningful progress in the commercialisation of its product.

This brings us to what really counts: the underlying product strategies.

In the nuclear medicine space, the focus is on Ytterbium-176 and Carbon-14. The former is used for cancer treatments, while the latter is useful in chemical and biological research.

Things were looking good in 2025 for Ytterbium-176, with the first enriched sample shipped to a customer in August. Alas, a power surge at the facility in Gauteng damaged one of three lasers, requiring repair by the manufacturer and significant delays. They plan to ship commercial Ytterbium-176 by the third quarter of 2026.

In Carbon-14, initial commercial shipments are expected in mid-2026, although this depends on timely receipt of carbon-dioxide gas as feedstock.

In radiopharmaceuticals, ASP Isotopes has a 51% stake in PET Labs, a company that supplies nuclear medicine doses for PET and SPECT scanning in South Africa. They are growing quickly locally, giving them the confidence to execute an acquisition in the US in late 2025. Overall, this part of the business is expected to double its revenue in 2026 to over $10 million.

In the electronics space, ASP Isotopes plays in Silicon-28, helium and fluorinated gases. The idea is to serve chip fabs globally, tapping into the generational demand that we are seeing in that space thanks to AI.

In Silicon-28, customer samples were first shipped in August 2025. The first enriched product is due to ship in the second quarter of 2026.

In helium, the phase 1 well drilling at the Virginia Gas Project (acquired through the Renergen deal) was completed four months ahead of schedule. Across both LNG and liquid helium, they are targeting Phase 1 nameplate capacity by the third quarter of 2026. There is then a 44-month construction timeline for Phase 2.

Finally, in nuclear fuels, we find the Quantum Leap Energy business. This is being dressed up for an IPO at the moment, which is why we’ve seen so many press releases about this company. Although headquartered in Texas, the company uses the Pelindaba nuclear site right here in South Africa.

2026 is where the rubber hits the road for ASP Isotopes. Either way, I can’t see it being a flat year for the share price!

What will you be doing here?

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ASP Isotopes: a critical year ahead

Where do you see the ASP Isotopes share price going over the next 12 months?


Emira is making a significant play for Octodec (JSE: EMI | JSE: OCT)

They are looking to acquire up to 34.9% – and for a good reason

A 34.9% stake in a company may sound odd to you. In reality, it’s an extremely important level. If a shareholder breaches the 35% threshold, that investor is required to make an offer to all other shareholders. This is known as a mandatory offer, as the investor has no choice in the matter but to make the offer.

Through a patient approach, investors can choose to build their stakes up over time. This means acquiring a minority stake (where there is no control premium) at a lower price than the eventual controlling stake.

If you’ve picked up a third of the company without paying a control premium, you’ve ended up with a far more affordable deal than if you went for 100% right off the bat.

In the case of Emira, they have already acquired just over 20% in Octodec from various institutional asset managers in off-market transactions. They are now making a voluntary offer to shareholders to acquire enough shares to take Emira to a 34.9% holding.

In other words, they want to be just below the mandatory offer threshold.

The price on the table is R16.75 per share. Octodec’s net asset value (NAV) per share is R24.55. This is yet another example of shares changing hands at a substantial discount to the NAV.

Shareholders who like this price would tender their shares to Emira and then wait and see how many shares Emira takes from them. This will depend on the total number of shares tendered to Emira.

Interestingly, Octodec’s share price is up 79% in the past year, so that partially explains why the institutional investors were willing to exit their stakes!


Yes, RMH is in discussions to sell Grove Mall (JSE: RMH)

Where was the cautionary announcement for this?

There are a lot of questions being asked around the governance of RMB Holdings (RMH) and Atterbury Property Fund at the moment. The latest news won’t do them any favours, as RMH has been forced to respond to press reports about the proposed sale of The Grove Mall in Namibia.

Remember, RMH has been pursuing a value unlock strategy that stalled. This is the major underlying reason why the company believes that the market should consider the offer by the AttBid consortium at R0.47 per share.

Fair enough. But in that context, wouldn’t shareholders like to know that a potential sale of one of the assets is on the table, which could then lead to a cash distribution?

To be fair, the asset is held by Atterbury Property, in which RMH only has a 38.5% stake. It would be much worse if the negotiations were for one of the directly-held RMH properties. Even if the property is sold, there’s no guarantee that the proceeds would eventually flow up to RMH shareholders. In fact, there’s very little chance that this would happen, given the relationships among the parties.

Still, when your only remaining purpose as a listed company is to crystallise your assets and return cash to shareholders, it’s pretty wild that there’s a potential disposal being negotiated in the background without a cautionary announcement being released. Sure, the deal is still subject to due diligence and all the rest, but if the press got wind of it, then the cautionary should’ve been out already!

I could find no reference at all to The Grove Mall in the offer circular either. The whole situation in this deal just seems to be getting messier over time.

And in the background, AttBid has been buying up more shares. Together with Atterbury Property Fund, the parties now have 42.97% of shares in issue.


Sirius Real Estate keeps finding pockets of growth in Western Europe (JSE: SRE)

A focused strategy is the right strategy

Sirius Real Estate is one of the more interesting JSE-listed property funds. If you’re keen to understand their approach to capital allocation, I absolutely recommend listening to the podcast that I recorded with their executive team in December last year. It’s just as relevant now as it was then.

In a trading update for the financial year ended March 2026, the company has demonstrated the power of this strategy. The like-for-like rent roll growth of 6.4% is impressive when the underlying exposure is Germany and the UK. This is their 12th consecutive year of exceeding like-for-like rent roll growth of 5%!

They’ve been busy with deals, so the total rent roll is up 18.4% year-on-year. This is what happens when you acquire 13 assets for €464 million!

In Germany, recent pricing on leases has been particularly encouraging. They’ve achieved the desirable combination of higher rates and increased occupancy levels. The geopolitical backdrop is obviously creating uncertainty at the moment, but it also supports the strategy to acquire properties in Germany that appeal to tenants in the defence industry. The abovementioned podcast goes into this theme in great detail.

In the UK, weaker consumer confidence and uncertainty around government policy led to a disappointing end to calendar year 2025. But in the final quarter of the financial year (i.e. the first quarter of calendar year 2026), there was a decent catch-up in activity thanks to some of the policy issues being cleared up.

Overall, the group expects property valuations to be flat in the UK. At group level, valuations are up, implying that the performance in Germany was much better than in the UK.

Sirius raised £77 million in equity in February 2026. This helped them complete the acquisition of the Kiel property in Germany within just six weeks of the capital raise. Although the other deal on the table at the time has subsequently fallen over due to price expectations by the seller, Sirius has identified two alternative assets for the remaining targeted equity spend. One of them is a defence asset. Delays in capital deployment can be a drag on returns, but stubbornly doing deals at any price is much worse!

The group is also recycling capital through the sale of properties at a premium to book value. A significant disposal for €30 million is due to complete in July 2026.

Overall, it looks like the financial year was a success. The market will now wait for other key metrics, like funds from operations and the distribution to shareholders.


Nibbles:

  • Director dealings:
    • A director of Remgro (JSE: REM) received share awards and sold the whole lot worth R1.2 million.
  • Shuka Minerals (JSE: SKA) announced that non-executive chairman, Quinton van der Burgh, has resigned from the board after the AGM. Another non-executive director has also stepped down.

Ghost Bites (Merafe | Optasia)

There’s hope for Merafe (JSE: MRF)

Eskom is looking to support the ferrochrome industry

For a long time now, there’s been incredible uncertainty around the ferrochrome industry and Merafe’s sustainability as a business. Smelters are energy pigs of note, with the company finding it impossible to operate without a sweetheart deal from Eskom on electricity tariffs.

After months of negotiations, Eskom and the government had indicated support for a special tariff of 62c per kWh. We aren’t exactly swimming in jobs in South Africa, so this is probably the correct practical decision, even though other industries may feel irritated that they don’t get a special price.

The tariff had remained subject to outstanding terms and conditions. After what I’m sure has been a stressful process for all involved, Eskom has confirmed the terms and conditions that would be applicable to this tariff. It sounds like Merafe is happy with them, so this is a huge positive step.

It isn’t quite across the line yet, as the wider ferrochrome industry needs to agree to the final terms. Ditto for NERSA, with regulatory approvals always creating a layer of risk for South African deals.

With a s189 process lurking in the background at Merafe (i.e. retrenchment of staff), the company has requested urgency in the regulatory process. Let’s hope that the targeted timeline of 30 days can be met.

What are your thoughts on this tariff?

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Special Eskom deals

What are your thoughts on Merafe's deal with Eskom?


Optasia has locked in significant funding (JSE: OPA)

Access to debt is important for any growth company

Optasia has announced a refinancing of its debt facilities. It’s a bit more exciting than that actually, as the new facility is also significantly larger.

The previous facility had limits of $120 million as a term loan and $105 million as a working capital facility. The new facility is higher on both counts, with a $180 million term loan and a $150 million working capital facility. That’s a total increase of $105 million.

The new facility has a tenor of three years, so this gives them reasonable balance sheet visibility.

RMB and Standard Bank acted as lead arrangers and underwriters. Nedbank and ABSA also participated in the facility. Talk about spreading the risk!

RMB is a related party to Optasia based on its shareholding relationship with FirstRand. RMB has contributed $35 million of the additional $105 million in debt.


Nibbles:

  • Director dealings:
    • Here’s an interesting one that shows you the extent to which Des de Beer is focused on offshore exposure. He received shares in Resilient (JSE: RES) and sold them to the value of R15.6 million. In contrast, we regularly see him buying shares in related offshore structure Lighthouse Properties (JSE: LTE).
    • A director of Standard Bank (JSE: SBK) sold shares worth almost R7.3 million.
    • A director of Supermarket Income REIT (JSE: SRI) bought shares worth around R555k.
  • RMB Holdings (JSE: RMH) announced that AttBid acquired additional shares in the company, taking its stake to 10.02%. That’s an increase of 0.2% since the 9.82% stake disclosed in the transaction circular. It therefore looks like the concert parties are up to roughly 42.8% as a combined stake.
  • Here’s an interesting one: Stafford Masie has stepped down as the Chair of Africa Bitcoin Corporation (JSE: BAC). He will remain a director. Masie has been spearheading the company’s bitcoin strategy and he will now “dedicate full energy” to it. Norma Sephuma, currently the Lead Independent Director, has been appointed as the new Chair.
  • ASP Isotopes (JSE: ISO) has scheduled a business update call for 13 April. Keep an eye out for the transcript.
  • For those who enjoy keeping track of what happens in the fixed income space, Sasol (JSE: SOL) will be repurchasing almost $334 million worth of 2029 notes under the previously announced tender offer. Acceptances to the value of $416 million were received, so they are having to cap the offer. Essentially, this means that demand by debtholders to be paid out exceeded Sasol’s ability to do so.

Concorde: an Icarian tale

Why the fastest passenger plane in history disappeared, while slower ones took over the world

Somewhere high over the equator, in that strange stretch of time where night refuses to end and morning takes its time arriving, I realised something mildly inconvenient about myself: I just cannot sleep on a plane.

Not properly, anyway. Not the kind of sleep that resets you. At best, I drift. At worst, I sit there, eyes closed, mind wide awake, tracking the slow, almost stubborn progress of a long-haul flight. Eight hours to destination becomes seven. Seven becomes six. The little picture of the plane on the map moves, but only just. Time in the sky doesn’t pass so much as it lingers.

It’s in that half-aware, slightly restless state that my brain starts looking for shortcuts. And, more often than not, it lands in the same place: the Concorde.

Every time I remember that we used to cross the Atlantic in just over three hours, the question feels ridiculous. If we’ve been capable of doing that since the 1970s, then why aren’t we still doing it now?

A future that gleamed

In 1962, best-of-enemies Britain and France signed an agreement to jointly develop the world’s first supersonic passenger aircraft, pooling resources in a bid to push the boundaries of what commercial aviation could achieve. The name itself – Concorde – means “agreement” or “harmony” as a nod to that cooperation.

When the first prototype took flight in 1969, it delivered in spectacular fashion. This was not an incremental improvement on existing aircraft. It was something entirely different: for the first time in history, ordinary people – not astronauts or military pilots – were flying at more than twice the speed of sound and cruising high enough to see the curvature of the Earth as they moved across it.

The implications felt immediate. Mach 2 became so easily accessible. A journey that once stretched across most of a day could now be completed in less than half the time – London to New York in just over three hours. For a moment, it seemed entirely plausible that this was where the future of aviation was heading. Faster, higher, more extreme. Not just better, but fundamentally different.

Speed at a price

But speed, especially at that scale, doesn’t exist in isolation. It brings its own set of constraints, and they’re not the kind that can be easily smoothed over with time.

Concorde was never going to carry hundreds of passengers per plane, and it was never going to operate cheaply. The physics alone made sure of that: it burned through fuel at a rate that only made sense at smaller volumes, and the sonic booms it produced meant it couldn’t fly over land without causing disruption. Its routes were limited before they even began.

These weren’t minor inefficiencies waiting to be optimised. They were structural realities that were bound up in the very thing that made Concorde extraordinary in the first place. So it found its place elsewhere.

By the time British Airways and Air France introduced commercial Concorde flights in the mid-1970s, Concorde had already begun to shift from technological breakthrough to something closer to a luxury experience. The passengers who filled its seats weren’t looking for affordability; they were buying time, and, just as importantly, what that time represented.

Flying Concorde became a signal of access, of status, of proximity to a certain version of the future. The champagne, the narrow cabin, the first-class service all reinforced the idea that this wasn’t simply a faster way to travel. It was a different category entirely. And, for a while, it worked. British Airways, in particular, managed to turn that positioning into something commercially viable. Not broadly profitable in the way mass-market aviation aims to be, but stable enough. Just stable enough.

Still, it was always a narrow path. High costs, limited routes, and a relatively small customer base left very little room for disruption. There wasn’t much margin for error, and even less for anything unexpected. Which is why, when something did go wrong, the consequences were dire.

The crash that changed the conversation

On 25 July 2000, Air France Flight 4590 departed from Paris en route to New York. Moments after take-off, a chain of events unfolded that would come to define the final chapter of Concorde’s story. A piece of metal debris left on the runway punctured one of the aircraft’s tyres. The resulting explosion sent fragments into the fuel tank, triggering a leak and a subsequent fire. Within minutes, the aircraft lost power and crashed into a hotel in Gonesse.

Everyone on board was killed, along with four people on the ground. It was the first fatal crash involving the Concorde. It would also be the last.

In purely statistical terms, the Concorde’s safety record was almost faultless. For close to three decades, it had operated without a single passenger fatality, earning a reputation for reliability that, if anything, exceeded that of many conventional airliners. Yet the nature of the crash, combined with the visibility and the perceived “luxe” status of the Concorde brand, had an outsized impact on public perception.

Flights were grounded. Investigations followed. Technical modifications were introduced, including reinforced fuel tanks and improved tyres. Service eventually resumed, but by the time the Concorde returned, the world it re-entered had changed. In the wake of 9/11, the early 2000s brought with them an overall downturn in global air travel, heightened sensitivity to risk, and increasing scrutiny of high-cost operations that served relatively few passengers. 

By 2003, both Air France and British Airways had retired their Concorde fleets. The official reasons pointed to rising maintenance costs, declining demand, and broader industry pressures. An aircraft that was expensive to run, limited in application, and suddenly more vulnerable in the public imagination simply became harder to justify.

Meanwhile, at 35,000 feet

While Concorde was exiting stage left, the rest of the aviation industry continued to evolve along more… conventional lines. Subsonic aircraft became more efficient, more accessible, and more deeply embedded in global transport systems. At the centre of this ecosystem sat companies like Boeing, whose aircraft formed the backbone of commercial aviation for decades.

For much of its history, Boeing represented a certain standard. Founded in 1916, the company built its reputation on engineering excellence and a commitment to safety that became almost synonymous with its brand. The phrase “If it’s not Boeing, I’m not going” was not just a clever marketing line; it reflected a level of trust that had been earned over generations.

Of course, that trust has been tested in recent years. I wrote a longer piece about Boeing’s struggles (and how they came to be) here, but I’ll give you the TL;DR: between 2018 and 2019, two Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft were involved in fatal crashes shortly after take-off – one in Indonesia, the other in Ethiopia. Investigations revealed issues with the aircraft’s MCAS system, which relied on faulty sensor data and repeatedly forced the planes into nose-down positions that pilots struggled to counteract. In total, 346 people lost their lives across the two incidents.

Regulators moved to ground the 737 Max fleet, resulting in the longest suspension of a US airliner in history. Boeing faced billions in fines, compensation claims, and lost orders, along with a level of scrutiny that extended far beyond technical fixes.

Even after the aircraft was recertified and returned to service, the headlines did not entirely subside. In 2024, a 737 Max 9 experienced a mid-flight decompression event when a section of the fuselage detached, forcing an emergency landing. No fatalities occurred, but the incident reinforced the narrative that Boeing was struggling to maintain the standards that had once defined it.

And yet, despite all of this, Boeing did not go the way of the Concorde. The embattled aircraft builder remains central to global aviation today.

The resilience of scale

I find the contrast between Concorde and Boeing fascinating. One aircraft, with a near-pristine safety record, is effectively retired after a single fatal incident. Another, associated with multiple crises and systemic issues, continues to operate at scale.

The explanation lies less in the specifics of each case and more in the broader systems they inhabit. Boeing’s aircraft are not niche products. They are integral to the functioning of global air travel. Airlines build fleets around them, train pilots to operate them, and structure entire route networks on the assumption that these planes will remain in service. When problems arise, the consequences are severe – but so is the incentive to resolve them. Grounding a fleet of that scale is disruptive. Replacing it entirely is, in most cases, impractical.

Concorde, by contrast, existed at the margins of this system. It was a technological outlier, admired for its capabilities – loved, even – but not essential to the day-to-day movement of people and goods. When it encountered a crisis, there was no broader dependency forcing its return. The world did not need Concorde to keep moving, which is why it simply moved on without it.

The Concorde belonged to an era that was more willing to invest in symbolic technological achievements, even when the commercial case was uncertain. Its heyday – in the 1990s – saw roughly 1.5 billion commercial airline passengers take to the skies annually. In 2024, that number had more than tripled, sitting at an estimated 5 billion seats sold per year. Today’s aviation industry operates under different constraints, where efficiency, scale, and cost control tend to outweigh spectacle.

That doesn’t mean the dream has disappeared entirely. There are still companies exploring supersonic travel, promising quieter engines and more sustainable designs. The idea of crossing oceans in a matter of hours continues to hold a certain appeal (and not just to me).

For now, though, it remains just that – an idea, waiting for the right conditions to take hold again. Why did we stop flying faster than sound? The answer is not that we forgot how. It’s that we couldn’t quite make it work for enough people, for long enough, to justify keeping it alive.

Concorde showed us what the future might look like. Boeing, for better or worse, shows us what the present requires.

About the author: Dominique Olivier

Dominique Olivier is the founder of human.writer, where she uses her love of storytelling and ideation to help brands solve problems.

Her first book, Lessons from Loss, has been published by Penguin Random House.

She is a weekly columnist in Ghost Mail and collaborates with The Finance Ghost on Ghost Mail Weekender, a Sunday publication designed to help you be more interesting.

Dominique can be reached on LinkedIn here.

Ghost Bites (Alphamin | Araxi | Nu-World)

Alphamin’s earnings are growing rapidly (JSE: APH)

High tin prices are working their magic for the company

Alphamin has announced their EBITDA for the three months to March 2026. As expected, it’s very good.

Tin production was flat and sales were actually down 1%, but that’s ok when the price of tin as increased by a casual 30% quarter-on-quarter.

All-in sustaining cost (AISC) per tonne increased by 7%. This means that profit per tonne shot up, leading to an increase in group EBITDA of 46%.

Perhaps the biggest giggle for investors will be the increase in net cash from $12 million to $140 million in the space of three months!

It’s not all good news though – fuel prices are set to increase in Q2, as the company has 30 days of diesel on site and a further 75 days in transit in the DRC. If fuel prices remain high, then that could become a pressure point.

For context, fuel contributed just over $2,000/tonne of AISC before the increase. Total AISC is just under $18,000/tonne, so fuel is more than 10% of the cost of production.

The company plans to make a dividend decision later this month. With the share price up nearly 39% over 12 months, shareholders will be hoping for a strong dividend.


Araxi is taking a very big step forwards (JSE: AXX)

The acquisition of Pay@ is certainly exciting – but that means risky as well

Araxi has released the circular for the acquisition of 80% in Pay@ and its international affiliate. This is a R1 billion transaction, so this is a transformative deal for the group (hence the need for a circular and shareholder vote).

Araxi has a payments business that everyone loves. They also have a software business that has many question marks around its economic appeal. I don’t think that shareholders will complain about the company deepening its exposure in the payments space.

There are good reasons to be investing in this space. Increasing digital payment adoption means that more transactions are taking place through cashless methods every day. There are also trends like online shopping, and the importance of data to retailers – things that are powered by digital payments.

How does Pay@ fit into this story? Araxi describes it as “the most extensive network of payment channels across sub-Saharan Africa” – processing more than R60 billion in transaction value in the 12 months to February 2026.

Pay@ has been around since 2007, with an initial focus on bill payments. They used this as the foundation for an expansion into B2C payments as well. Today, they operate across South Africa and most of our neighbouring countries.

Transaction volumes at Pay@ grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19% from FY21 to FY25. Transaction value achieved a CAGR of 11% over the same period. This tells us that the average transaction value decreased over time, indicating adoption of digital payments by lower-income consumers as well.

Revenue at Pay@ grew at a CAGR of 13% over the period. Importantly, EBITDA grew at 20%, so economies of scale are visible in this business. Adjusted EBITDA in FY25 was over R130 million.

It’s clearly a solid business, but is Araxi doing the right thing by acquiring 80% of it for R1 billion? This question is even more important in the context of Araxi incurring debt of R800 million from Investec (at 3-month JIBAR + 2%) to do the deal. The days of a debt-free balance sheet are clearly behind them.

The remaining 20% will be held by two minority shareholders who aren’t ready to sell at this time. This is at least an encouraging sign, as a wild overpayment for the shares by Araxi would’ve encouraged these shareholders to sell as well. But the seller is a private equity firm, so they also aren’t fools when it comes to accepting an appealing price.

As a cash flow positive company that fits very cleanly into Araxi’s strategy, this deal looks solid overall. With revenue of R259 million for the year ended February 2025, the implied value for 100% of Pay@ (R1.25 billion) is a meaty Price/Sales multiple of 4.6x. With net profit margin of 34% though, it’s a Price/Earnings multiple of around 13x.

It’s very important to note that these revenue and profit numbers are now an entire year out of date, so these multiples should’ve already unwound significantly based on what was hopefully a good year in FY26.

Fintechs attract strong valuations. This one is no exception. Shareholders will now need to vote on whether they are comfortable with this transaction.

How do you feel about the transaction?


Nu-World had a great time in Hong Kong of all places (JSE: NWL)

But the same can’t be said for Australia

Nu-World has a market cap of R610 million. There’s unfortunately very little liquidity in the stock though, so the company sits well off the radar of most investors. A mid-single digit P/E ratio means that the dividend yield has been a substantial component of returns for investors.

In the six months ended February 2026, revenue for this distributor of appliances was up just 2.6%. Local sales were flat, while international sales increased 6.1%. Consumer pressure remains an important theme in South Africa, which contributes over 63% of group revenue.

At an income level though, South Africa’s profit increased from R22 million to R29.4 million. The highlight in the offshore business was Hong Kong, where profitability jumped from R2.3 million to almost R15 million. Alas, Australia swung from profits of R6.6 million to a loss of R6.2 million.

As you can see, these aren’t exactly huge numbers. Growth in group HEPS was really good though, up 29.8% to R47 million.

In the prior period, they made more profit in the second half of the year than the first half. That’s a demanding base for the full year results.


Nibbles:

  • Director dealings:
    • Two senior executives at Standard Bank (JSE: SBK) sold shares worth just under R38 million.
    • The company secretary of AVI (JSE: AVI) received share awards and sold the full amount for nearly R13k.
  • In the circular related to the AttBid offer, RMB Holdings (JSE: RMH) confirmed that the entire board would be resigning after the offer (i.e. on 29 May 2026). You certainly won’t see that every day! Here’s something else you won’t see: a general request for director nominations from the market. The board must have between 4 and 20 directors, so there are a few positions up for grabs. The broader stakeholder relationships aren’t exactly friendly though, so it won’t be an easy role.
  • British American Tobacco (JSE: BTI) has appointed Dragos Constantinescu as the new CFO. He joins the group from a large brewery company. I bet this man can tell a good story at the braai.

Who’s doing what this week in the South African M&A space?

Sentiv, a provider of mission-critical communications and intelligent technology solutions previously known as Altron Nexus, has acquired a majority stake in Visiosoft. Visiosoft is a local technology company specialising in internet of things (IOT) hardware and data-driven solutions. The partnership will enable Visiosoft to scale its solutions more rapidly, leveraging Sentiv’s market presence, partner ecosystem and infrastructure capabilities. Financial details were undisclosed.

Providere JV, a vehicle established by the management consortium of Isambane Mining, successfully concluded the buyout of the company. Isambane is a mid-tier mining contractor in South Africa delivering opencast mining services, including drilling, blasting, loading, hauling rehabilitation and day-work to blue-chip mining client. The transaction received Competition Commission approval in mid-January 2026. Kholo Capital and Tensai Private Equity provided R275 million in mezzanine debt funding to support the transaction.

Venture Capital firm Endeavor South Africa has closed its Harvest Fund III at R230 million, an investment pool earmarked for investment in local technology business. The fund which reached its first close of R190 million in October 2024 aimed to raise R500 million but was closed prior to this being reached due to appetite from local pension funds and other financial institutions.

Weekly corporate finance activity by SA exchange-listed companies

The Industrial Development Corporation of SA (IDC) has agreed to convert its convertible loan facility into equity in Orion Minerals’ subsidiary PCZM Holdco. The agreement, signed in February 2023 was implemented on 31 March 2026. Following the equity conversion, the IDC will hold c.23.8% of PCZM Holdco and an effective 16.7% in the Prieska Copper Zinc Mine. The IDC will retain a shareholder loan of c.R272,4 million.

Following the results of the scrip dividend election, Fortress Real Estate Investments will issue 6,086,068 new FFB shares in the company in lieu of an interim dividend, resulting in a capitalisation of the distributable retained profits in the company of R132,99 million.

AttBid, a vehicle representing Atterbury Property Fund (APF), I Faan and I Dirk, which made an offer to RMH shareholders last month, acquired a further 2,066,220 shares in on-market transactions this week. Following this, AttBid and APF hold 32.77% and 9.82% respectively, resulting in an aggregate of c.42.59% of the RMH shares in issue. The offer closes on 29 May 2026.

Jubilee Metals’ shareholders, at the General Meeting held this week, approved the special resolution of reduce the share premium account of the company. Jubilee will now apply to the Court for confirmation of the Capital Reduction with the reduction expected on 29 April 2026.

This week the following companies announced the repurchase of shares:

The Old Mutual share repurchase programme announced in October 2025 will repurchase c.220 million ordinary shares for a total consideration of R3 billion. Repurchases will take place on the JSE only and the shares will be cancelled reverting to authorised but unissued ordinary share capital. Since the October announcement 147,004,816 shares have been repurchased for a total consideration of R2,07 billion. A further 6.88% may still be repurchased in terms of the General Authority granted by shareholders.

Quilter announced it would commence a share buyback programme to repurchase shares with a value of up to £100 million in order to reduce the share capital of the company and return capital to shareholders. This week Quilter repurchased 619,903 shares on the LSE with an aggregate value of £1,1 million and 410,262 shares on the JSE with an aggregate value of R16,37 million.

Ninety One plc announced that it has extended the repurchase programme from 31 March 2026 to 3 June 2026. 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 212,065 ordinary shares at an average price 214 pence for an aggregate £455,141.

GreenCoat Renewables has implemented a share buyback programme totalling €100 million over 12 months with a first tranche amounting to €25 million beginning on 5 March 2026 – representing 13% of the issued share capital. This week 2,195,795 shares were repurchased for and aggregate €1,60 million.

Anheuser-Busch InBev’s US$6 billion share buy-back programme continues. 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 30 March to 3 April 2026, the group repurchased 1,079,139 shares for €65,07 million.

In December 2025, British American Tobacco extended its share buyback programme by a further £1.3 billion for 2026. The shares will be cancelled. This week the company repurchased a further 472,079 shares at an average price of £43.85 per share for an aggregate £20,70 million.

During the period 30 March to 3 April 2026, Prosus repurchased a further 1,797,401 Prosus shares for an aggregate €70,9 million and Naspers, a further 764,392 Naspers shares for a total consideration of R663,3 million.

Two companies issued or withdrew a cautionary notice: RMB Holdings and Trustco.

Who’s doing what in the African M&A and debt financing space?

Global Settlement Holdings (GSH), the investment firm behind US-based blockchain infrastructure company Global Settlement Network, will acquire a majority stake in AKIBA International, to develop a regulated broker-dealer and exchange platform in Uganda. The initiative will focus on tokenised infrastructure, mining, and trade finance, targeting up to US$1,5 billion in capital commitments across real economy sectors including energy, special economic zones, and mineral value chains.

Specialist agriculture investor, AgDevCo, has made a US$15 million follow-on investment in Victory Group, an East African aquaculture company producing and distributing Nile tilapia. Victory Group farms tilapia on Lake Victoria in Kenya and Lake Kivu in Rwanda. The company sells fresh fish to thousands of mama samakis (female market traders), through more than one hundred sales outlets. AgDevCo’s mezzanine loan will support Victory Group’s next phase of expansion, including multiple new farming sites in Kenya and Rwanda.

TLG Capital announced their first investment in Zambia – a US$5 million scaling Private Credit Facility for Shona Zambia, an SME lender providing fast and flexible loans to businesses. The investment was made from TLG’s Africa Growth Impact Fund II and structured to support the growth of Shona’s loan book: capacity will be released in subsequent tranches as Shona scales, with additional guarantors and institutional partners expected to join as the transaction grows.

SMC DAO (SirMapy and Co. decentralised autonomous organisation), a community of crypto traders and investors that backs and builds Web3 products, has acquired Nigerian crypto startup Bread Africa in an undisclosed all-cash six-figure deal. Bread Africa operates as a web-based crypto application that allows users to convert digital assets into local currency.

An Egyptian government-backed startup support and investment platform, Falak Startups, has exited Delta Oil with a 25.5x return in EGP terms, to Den VC. Delta Oil operates in Egypt’s waste management and alternative energy space, focusing on the collection and aggregation of used cooking oil for biodiesel, recycled jet fuel, and other energy applications.

Mountain Harvest, a Ugandan specialty coffee company working with smallholder farmers to improve incomes and promote climate resilience through regenerative agriculture, has received an undisclosed investment from Acumen. The investment will support Mountain Harvest’s next phase of growth, including the construction of a temperature-controlled warehouse, accompanied with a dry mill and colour sorter, and land acquisition to expand processing capacity. These investments are expected to improve quality control, optimize product mix, and strengthen margins.

Inside Capital Partners has investment in Hautes Études Pratiques Internationales, the education platform behind Vatel Madagascar, a provider of internationally recognised hospitality and tourism management programmes in Madagascar. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Egyptian Fintech Lucky, has closed a US$23 million Series B funding round, including a mix of equity and debt. The round was led by existing & new investors, including Disruptech Ventures, DPI Venture Capital via Nclude fund,Suez Canal Bank, and OneStop. The funding will support Lucky’s next phase of growth, with a focus on scaling its credit offering, expanding into North Africa, and strengthening its infrastructure, licensing, and regulatory readiness as it moves toward becoming a neo-banking-ready platform.

Morocco-based retail B2B2C marketplace ZSystems has raised US$1,65 million in a seed round led by Azur Innovation Management, with follow-on participation from MNF Ventures and Witamax and new backing from Harambeans Prosperity Fund. The latest raise brings the company’s total funding to $2,7 million, following a $1,05 million pre-seed round supported by MNF Ventures, Witamax, CASHPLUS Ventures, and Kalys Ventures. The new funding will support continued product development, platform expansion, and market penetration.

Nigeria’s Zenith Bank announced the completion of its 100% acquisition of Paramount Bank Kenya. Following widespread media speculation in November 2025, Zenith issued a statement stating that the company had not released any official commentary of the deal, but that it was “currently exploring various regional expansion opportunities”. In January 2026, the Competition Authority of Kenya announced that it has approved the deal subject to conditions. No financial terms have been disclosed.

Leading on AI

A boardroom imperative in South Africa’s digital revolution

Global investment in artificial intelligence (AI)1 has reached an inflection point. The global AI market surged to approximately US$260bn in 2025 and is on track to exceed $1,200bn by 2030, reflecting a fourfold increase.2 AI is now widely recognised as the next great general-purpose technology, and is arguably the fastest-spreading technology in human history. In less than three years, more than 1,2 billion people have used AI tools, a pace of adoption that eclipses that of the internet, the personal computer and the smartphone.3

South Africa is firmly part of this acceleration. Use of AI by South African businesses has risen sharply, from 45% of respondents in 2024 to approximately 67% at the end of 2025, as cited in a recent report.4 AI is no longer merely an emerging technology; it already plays a key role in digital transformation in South Africa, and businesses that approach AI with robust protections and innovative strategies not only mitigate risks, but also position themselves to thrive as industry leaders in an ever-evolving market.

Notwithstanding the obvious potential of AI, there remain significant barriers to adoption, including data privacy concerns, implementation costs, lack of skilled talent, regulatory compliance, ethical concerns, reputational risk, and a general resistance to change. Management and boards must provide leadership on AI by driving innovation and growth, and providing strategic direction and oversight.

Unfortunately, the boardroom response has lagged the above reality. According to Deloitte, nearly 31% of directors report that AI is still not on their board agenda, although this has improved from 45% in the previous survey.5 More concerning is that only 15% of South African businesses have formal AI governance policies, creating fertile ground for “Shadow AI” – the unsupervised use of AI tools by employees, with significant legal, ethical and reputational risks.6

The importance of AI cannot be overstated – it drives productivity, innovation and competitive advantage like few technologies before it. Yet the risks are equally profound, encompassing heightened cybersecurity threats, data-privacy breaches, inaccurate or misleading outputs from AI “hallucinations”, embedded biases that can perpetuate inequality, and the gradual erosion of human skills through over-reliance on automation. In the past year alone, ransomware attacks rose globally by over a third, with generative AI emerging as a powerful enabler of threats, particularly through deepfakes – the second most common cybersecurity incident after malware.7

For boards, therefore, the question is no longer whether AI will impact their organisations, but whether they are governing its use and impact effectively and responsibly.

Although South Africa has not yet adopted comprehensive AI legislation or a dedicated AI regulatory framework, the use of AI is already subject to regulation through a range of existing legal and governance instruments. These include the Companies Act, the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), the Consumer Protection Act, and the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act.

In addition, the recently introduced King V Report on Corporate Governance for South Africa, 2025 (King V) explicitly addresses the governance of AI. King V underscores the responsibility of directors to ensure clear accountability for AI-related decisions, to implement human oversight mechanisms proportionate to the level of risk, and to consider periodic independent assurance of AI systems. Its alignment with POPIA and the emerging National Artificial Intelligence Policy Framework signals that AI governance has become a core board responsibility. Within this evolving regulatory ecosystem, directors’ fiduciary duties and statutory duties under the Companies Act – to act in the best interests of the company and with reasonable care, skill and diligence – now extend squarely to the oversight of AI.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to board governance of AI, as the approach to be adopted would largely depend on factors such as the organisation’s size, industry, and the scope of usage of generative AI in its operations. However, the checklist below provides a good starting point for boards to consider:

  1. Establish clear accountability. Designate ownership of AI at both board and management level. Avoid fragmented responsibility by assigning oversight to a specific committee, supported by cross-functional representation from legal, IT, risk, compliance and business units.
  2. Decide on AI strategy. Boards should interrogate management’s view on AI’s relevance and provide strategic leadership. AI adoption should align with the organisation’s business model, resources and long-term objectives. The board should monitor changes in the AI landscape and emerging thinking, to provide strategic direction.
  3. Develop and enforce a comprehensive AI policy. Organisations should develop AI usage policies, taking into account the risks posed by shadow AI within their operations. Such policies should, inter alia, identify approved AI tools aligned to business needs, set clear data-sharing rules, and require user training on responsible AI use. In doing so, they enable the classification of AI risks, the implementation of appropriate controls, and the proactive management of AI-related exposure.
  4. Competitor risk. Consider the risk of existing or emerging competitors leveraging AI and how this could impact the company.
  5. Build an AI inventory. Boards cannot govern what they cannot see. Require management to identify all AI systems in use, including shadow AI. Each system should be documented with its purpose, data sources, risk level and degree of human oversight.
  6. Define risk appetite. The board should explicitly consider how much AI-related risk the organisation is willing to accept, and how trade-offs between innovation and control are managed.
  7. Demand transparency and explainability. Directors should be able to understand, at a high level, how material AI systems make decisions. Systems that cannot be explained should trigger enhanced scrutiny or additional safeguards.
  8. Invest in board and workforce education and identify skilled talent. Ongoing education – through briefings, external experts or advisory panels – is essential for informed oversight. Recruit skilled talent where necessary.
  9. Implement ongoing monitoring and assurance. AI governance is not a once-off exercise. Regular audits, crisis simulations, bias testing and performance monitoring should be embedded, with escalation triggers where systems deviate from expected outcomes.
  10. Embed culture, ethics and disclosure. “Responsible AI”8 depends on culture. The board should ensure ethical principles such as fairness, accountability and transparency are reflected in policies, training and external disclosures, giving stakeholders confidence in the organisation’s approach.

In conclusion, AI governance has moved decisively from a technical concern to a central boardroom responsibility. Globally, only around one-third of boards report that they feel adequately prepared to oversee AI risks, highlighting a material governance capability gap. In this context, directors who fail to engage meaningfully with AI risk not only regulatory exposure, but strategic irrelevance. King V makes it clear that effective AI oversight is a key component of a board’s fiduciary duty. Boards that approach AI with discipline, ethical intent and informed curiosity will be best positioned to harness its value and sustain stakeholder trust.

Henning de Kock is CEO and Johann Piek an Executive | PSG Capital

1 In this article, the term “AI” is used in its broadest sense to refer to all forms of artificial intelligence, including, but not limited to, generative AI. It encompasses technologies such as machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and other related AI systems.
2 https://www.statista.com/chart/35510/ai-market-growth-forecasts-by-segment/#:~:text=The%20global%20artificial%20intelligence%20market,enterprise%2C%20healthcare%20and%20consumer%20markets.
3 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Microsoft-AI-Diffusion-Report.pdf
4 Based on survey respondents, including official use within respondent businesses (i.e. formally adopted), unofficial use or both. https://www.worldwideworx.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/The-SA-Gen-AI-Roadmap-2025.pdf.
5 https://www.deloitte.com/global/en/issues/trust/progress-on-ai-in-the-boardroom-but-room-to-accelerate.html.
6https://www.researchgate.net/publication/395822472_South_Africa’s_AI_Trajectory_Navigating_the_Divide_Between_National_Ambition_and_Market_Reality.
7 https://www.ey.com/content/dam/ey-unified-site/ey-com/en-us/campaigns/board-matters/documents/ey-cbm-cyber-and-ai-oversight-disclosures-2025-3.pdf
8 Responsible AI encompasses organisational responsibilities and practices that ensure positive, accountable and ethical AI development and operation.

This article first appeared in DealMakers, SA’s quarterly M&A publication.

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