ASP is already achieving better metrics at Renergen’s helium project (JSE: ISO)
Money and expertise: the magic ingredients
ASP Isotopes has released an update on the Renergen helium project. With bridge loan funding having been put to good use (including the engagement of Kinley Exploration as a drilling and modelling specialist), things are starting to look much better in terms of drilling results and other key metrics.
The plant is now processing around 60% more gas than before, although this is obviously off a soft base. They are also making progress in further monetising the LNG, with 60% of the phase 1 offtake already contracted with industrial customers. The expectation is to achieve positive operational cash flow before the end of 2026.
But of course, the big value sits in the helium. My overall read of this announcement is that ASP is focused on stopping the cash burn by ensuring that the LNG business is working properly. They are obviously working on commercial pathways for helium in the meantime as well.
It all seems sensible to me.
Dipula’s lower-income focused portfolio is doing well (JSE: DIB)
This is fascinating to read alongside recent apparel sector updates
When you read updates from the clothing retailers, they lament the extent of participation in online gambling and blame it for their troubles. I don’t doubt that there’s at least some truth to that, but it cannot possibly be the entire story. This is why it’s important to read the perspective of the landlords as well, particularly as it relates to properties situated near townships, on busy commuter routes and in rural areas.
Dipula Properties gives us a great data point, as 70% of their portfolio sits in this category. A 5% increase in total turnover in the retail portfolio for the quarter ended 31 December 2025 suggests that apparel retailers are struggling more than other retailers. Either that, or some of the listed names in apparel just aren’t managing to participate in the growth story at this lower end of the market, while also failing to appeal to a higher income audience that isn’t spending too much money on gambling. That messy middle is a tough place to play (and invest).
Anyway, back to Dipula we go. Almost all retail categories grew by between 3% and 11%, with cellular and electronics growing the fastest (we’ve also seen this at retailers like Mr Price). Services turnover fell by 2%, the only one in the red.
Provincially, KZN and the Eastern Cape were good for 10% and 8% growth respectively. Limpopo was up 6%, North-West grew 4%, Gauteng and the Free State each did 3% and Mpumalanga managed to dip by 1.5%.
By property type, urban convenience and rural centres were up 6%, while urban township centres increased 3%.
Another trend that we’ve seen among retailers is record Black Friday sales. Dipula has echoed this, noting a pull-forward of sales from December into November.
Dipula also noted that the acquisition of four properties that was announced in August 2025 has now been completed. With a total value of R713.3 million, this is a meaty acquisition. Two of them are industrial assets and two are retail properties.
Exxaro updates the market on the manganese deal (JSE: EXX)
This acquisition was first announced back in May 2025
Exxaro is in the process of acquiring manganese assets from Ntsimbintle Holdings and OMH Mauritius. Corporate deals take a long time to close, so companies tend to keep investors updated along the way.
The first transaction includes the acquisition of various stakes, including 100% in Ntsimbintle Mining, 19.99% in Jupiter and 9% in Hotazel (among other assets). These transactions have become unconditional and are expected to close before 27 February.
The Mokala transaction, which involves the acquisition of 51% of Mokala, is still in the process of fulfilling its suspensive conditions. The long stop date has been moved out to 26 February 2027. That seems very far in the future, so I wondered if this might be a typo in the SENS (it would make sense if they meant 2026).
A big finish to the year at Glencore in its copper operations (JSE: GLN)
But investors will have to be patient for a meaningful further increase
Glencore has released its full year 2025 production report. For the second year in a row, they’ve achieved volumes within the guided ranges for the key commodities. That’s a very important performance metric that the market pays close attention to.
Like all the other big dogs in the sector, Glencore is barking at every copper asset it can find. They want to become one of the largest copper producers in the world over the next decade.
With copper production in the second half (H2) being nearly 50% higher than in the first half (H1), it looks very good at first blush. As you dig deeper, you’ll see that full year production in copper was actually down 11%. Another point that cannot be ignored is copper guidance for 2026, which reflects a 1.4% year-on-year decrease at the mid-point of guidance.
They’ve disclosed significant additions to the copper mineral resource base, so hopefully this drives production growth in years to come.
Zinc production was up 7% for the full year. Momentum was good, with volumes up 8% in H2 vs. H1. This is another area where guidance for FY26 is going the wrong way, with a 26% drop at the mid-point of the range.
Steelmaking coal jumped 63% for the full year (thanks to the acquisition of Elk Valley Resources in mid-2024) and 7% in H2 vs. H1, while energy coal dipped 2% for the full year and increased 3% in H2 vs. H1. Guidance for the coal assets suggests flat production in 2026.
Special mention to silver, which is all the rage at the moment: production was up 6% for the full year and 25% in H2 vs. H1!
In terms of average realised prices, copper actually dipped 1% on a 12-month basis. Steelmaking coal fell 16.3%, while energy coal was down more than 20%. Even zinc fell by 1%. Overall, the production story is far more positive than the prices, although a 12-month average isn’t a good reflection of underlying momentum in prices.
Glencore is up 41% over 12 months based on the market’s love affair with emerging markets and anything that has copper in it.
Sibanye-Stillwater has given a detailed strategy presentation (JSE: SSW)
It feels like it’s been a while since I saw a fat deck of slides from them
A couple of years ago, Sibanye-Stillwater used to regularly release gigantic slide packs to the market that would go into tons of detail on the strategic thinking in the group and the approach to the commodity in question. Although there’s clearly been a changing of the guard in the form of a new CEO, it’s good to see that the company hasn’t completely moved away from giving such detailed presentations.
The latest such example is a great overview of the group. It includes some helpful slides on the journey of the company, including its history as a gold miner first and then only a PGM play! It also clearly demonstrates the split across primary mining, secondary mining (tailings) and recycling. Over the past three quarters, they generated 75% of EBITDA from primary mining, 19% from secondary mining and just 6% from recycling.
Aside from the usual stuff, like a focus on reducing costs in the group and being as efficient as possible, there’s a lot of talk around “unlocking value” and “portfolio simplification” – this means selling off non-core assets and focusing on the stuff that is making serious money at the moment. That’s probably the right approach, as Sibanye-Stillwater’s portfolio includes a lot of stuff that doesn’t really make sense in there.
One of the happy outcomes of such a portfolio simplification (and ongoing profits in the core operations) would be a de-risked balance sheet. They are targeting a 50% reduction in gross debt.
The full presentation is well worth checking out. You’ll find it on the Sibanye home page here.
Australia pulls Woolworths down under (JSE: WHL)
The South African businesses are doing well at least
Woolworths released a trading statement dealing with the 26 weeks to 28 December. It includes plenty of detail on the underlying performance, an approach that the market always appreciates.
What the market didn’t appreciate is the expected change in adjusted HEPS (restructure costs / forex / other distortions taken out) of between -2% and 3%. At the mid-point of the range, that’s only slightly positive. With the share price closing 6.2% lower on the day, it’s clear that the market focused on adjusted HEPS instead of HEPS as reported (up by between 7% and 12%).
If you dig deeper, you’ll find that the biggest issues are related to the usual suspect: Australia.
Let’s start with the good news story, right here in South Africa. There’s a nuance here that we need to deal with straight away: this update is for the 26-week period, not just the fourth quarter. It’s therefore not directly comparable to the other retailers in the sector who recently released quarterly updates vs. a very tough two-pot withdrawal base. These Woolworths numbers are impacted by that base, but it’s like comparing a triple-shot cocktail to a single-shot cocktail: they both have tequila, but you won’t taste it as much in the second one.
Credit to Woolworths – they do at least give an indication of trading in the last seven weeks of the period to help us make these comparisons. I’ll deal with that after the 26-week numbers.
Woolworths South Africa grew turnover and concession sales by 6.8% for the 26-week period. Within that, Woolworths Food was good for 7.0% growth, while Fashion, Beauty and Home (FBH) managed 6.2%. This tells us that both parts of the business are performing well at the moment.
The comparable-store picture is even more interesting: Food was up 5.2% and FBH up 6.4%. Price movement was 4.6% in Food and only 2.8% in FBH, implying solid growth in volumes in both businesses. They are expanding trading space in Food (up 4.3%, or 1.8% on a weighted basis) and reducing it in FBH (down 1.9%, weighted basis not disclosed).
In terms of online growth, Woolies Dash grew by a juicy 23% as South Africans chose to shop with their phones instead of their cars to get their hands on the best veggies in the market (with a side of fresh flowers). Online is now 7.2% of local Woolworths Food sales.
Irritatingly, they decided not to disclose the growth rate for online sales in FBH, forcing me to go digging to figure it out. In the comparable period, it was 6.6% of FBH sales, and in this period it was 6.4%. By my maths, this means that sales increased by around 3% (you can work it out based on the total FBH sales growth and how the contribution changed). That’s a bleak performance vs. growth of 25.2% in the prior period. Companies should disclose metrics consistently instead of cherry-picking the good ones.
Looking at momentum, the last seven weeks of the period saw sales growth of 5.3% at Food and 6.1% in FBH, in both cases a deceleration (as expected). This was despite my best efforts in buying a particularly good potato product that they now have.
Any other nuggets? Well, there’s a warning around gross margin in FBH due to inventory clearances, so we will need to wait for detailed results to see that. Another useful metric is that Beauty and Home continues to do very well for them, with those categories up 8.9% and 14.0% respectively. Fashion is a tougher place to play.
Now we need to deal with Australia, where Country Road Group continues to compete in a horrible retail market. Sales were up 2.3% for the period and 2.5% on a comparable-store basis. The last seven weeks were disappointing, with sales up just 1.0%. Despite how hard it all is, net trading space was up slightly by 0.2%, so they aren’t attempting to shrink into prosperity like they’ve done in FBH. The online sales contribution was unchanged at 27.2%, as Australia is a more mature online market.
The share price is down 4% over 12 months. There was some positive momentum recently, but the market response to this update reversed most of it. I’m looking forward to seeing the profitability in South Africa based on these sales numbers, as my suspicion is that Australia is the cause of all the issues and the disappointing growth in adjusted HEPS.
Nibbles:
- Director dealings:
- The CFO of Sephaku (JSE: SEP) bought shares worth R655k in on-market trades that are part of the long-term incentive scheme. This is a direct beneficial interest though, so I’m not sure how exactly this relates to the incentive scheme (something I would normally ignore as a director dealing). I’ve therefore included it here.
- Caxton and CTP Publishers and Printers (JSE: CAT) has decided to pay a special dividend. With over R3 billion in cash at the end of the 2025 financial year, they certainly aren’t short of resources. When you consider that the normal dividend for the year ended June 2025 was only R247.5 million, there’s even more headroom. They’ve decided to put a further R353.5 million into a special ordinary dividend (100 cents per share in the context of a share price of R13.80). Capital discipline is an important thing that investors look out for, so the share price rose 4% in response.
- Hosken Consolidated Investments (JSE: HCI) has achieved shareholder approval for the Squirewood transaction with SACTWU. It’s been quite complicated to get the structuring right, with HCI trying to help SACTWU with its investment needs, while ensuring that the company’s B-BBEE status is maintained at adequate levels.
- Ethos Capital (JSE: EPE) has given the market further details on the reinvestment option related to the offer for the residual assets in the group. With Ethos planning to return capital to shareholders from the transaction, there’s an option for qualifying shareholders (i.e. those with at least R1 million in ammo for this investment) to reinvest into the unlisted partnership that will hold these residual assets. Such shareholders would be become limited partners i.e. would have no part in management of the partnership. If this appeals to you, then I suggest you keep a close eye on company announcements.
- Greencoat Renewables (JSE: GCT) released a net asset value (NAV) update for 31 December 2025. Power generation was 9.1% below budget in Q4, so the variability in this business model continues to come through. They were 10.4% below budget for the full year. Still, they achieved 1.5x net dividend cover, which means that the target dividend for 2025 was met. Sadly, they are targeting a flat dividend for 2026. The balance sheet gearing ratio is 52% and they’ve been successful in extending facilities. Although the NAV per share dipped by around 2.5% for the quarter, the company has reminded the market that the internal rate of return (IRR) on the underlying portfolio is 9.4%, which is around 13% if you adjust for the current share price. South African investors are looking for dividend growth rather than pure currency hedges, so I don’t envy the management team in trying to sell this story at the moment.
- AfroCentric (JSE: ACT) is fighting with Bonitas Medical Aid Fund. Medscheme (part of AfroCentric) currently has the administration and managed care contracts from Bonitas, due to expire on 31 May 2026. Bonitas ran a Request for Proposal process and has awarded the contracts to a different company. Here’s the thing though: in December, Medscheme filed an urgent application with the High Court (due to be heard in March 2026) to stop the finalisation of the RFP process until the forensic investigation by the Council for Medical Schemes has been completed. Bonitas has finalised the process anyway, so the court hearing in March 2026 has now become very important for all parties involved. I’m grateful that I don’t have to take any of my customers to court to try keep them!
- Transpaco (JSE: TPC) has been busy with the due diligence related to the acquisition of Premier Plastics, a deal announced in November 2025. With the due diligence out of the way, Transpaco will not acquire the shares in Polyethylene Recoveries Proprietary Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Premier Plastics. There are no other changes to the terms of the deal and no significant new matters.
- Trustco (JSE: TTO) is suspended from trading and therefore has to release a quarterly update to the market. They’ve been working towards clarification from the JSE on the proposed audit sign-off that would include audit opinions by firms in each of Namibia and South Africa. Based on the current progress of the audit, they expect that the financial statements for the year ended August 2024(!) will likely be completed during Q1 of 2026. This timing depends on the ruling by the JSE regarding the audit process.
