ASP Isotopes looks to raise $210 million (JSE: ISO)
That’s a clever move after the recent jump in the share price
Smart companies know that the time to raise capital is when the share price is high and everyone is in love with your story. The very worst time is when the share price is depressed and you’re raising money just to survive. In fact, if you read some of the stories of US-based tech companies, the common thread seems to be that they raised money when they didn’t need it!
ASP Isotopes has been listed on the Nasdaq since 2022 and only recently added the JSE to the mix. American investors have a completely different mindset to South African investors, so ASP Isotopes is able to play the game that works in the US. In other words: raise capital when the share price has jumped.
Based on recent news around major supply contracts (the main driver) and bolt-on acquisitions (to a lesser extent), ASP Isotopes’ share price has increased over 46% in the past month. This is therefore a very good time to tap the market for capital.
The company is leaving itself some headroom, as they’ve filed a “shelf registration statement” which includes a prospectus that gives them the flexibility to raise up to $250 million across multiple types of instruments and over time in various tranches.
They aren’t wasting any time, with a public offering to raise $210.3 million in equity for general corporate purposes. They are doing this through underwriters and it looks like the price will be roughly $12.25 per share. The recent price on the Nasdaq was around $14.05 per share, so the underwriters will try and get that price in the market and make their margin in the process. This is very different to how you’ll typically see things play out in South Africa. Everything about the US market is geared towards large and successful capital raises, which is precisely why I have core holdings in my portfolio of US-based investment banks.
Like I said the other day in Ghost Bites: ASP Isotopes is run by investment bankers and they know how to use the capital markets.
Exemplar REITail’s latest deals tap into the informal-to-formal retail trend (JSE: EXP)
I can’t say I blame them
In South African property investing, there’s one class of retail properties that is really standing out at the moment: township-adjacent and commuter properties. Essentially, anything that allows for heavy foot traffic of lower income consumers who are shifting their spend from the informal sector to the formal sector. This trend is driving the story at grocers like Shoprite (JSE: SHP) and Boxer (JSE: BOX), so it’s the real deal.
Exemplar REITail isn’t scared to own these properties, with the latest acquisitions being firmly in this bucket. The first is a 50% share in Boitumelo Junction in Welkom and the second is a 100% share in Stimela Crossing in Barberton.
The Boitumelo Junction deal is priced at R124.3 million and the Stimela Crossing deal is priced at R235.5 million. In both cases, the deals are priced at net asset value (NAV) and Exemplar reckons these are the fair values. Based on the accounts for the year ended February 2025, the yields are 9.7% and 8.3% respectively. They just refer to the “profits” rather than net operating income, so I’m not 100% sure if the profits used to calculate the yield are directly comparable to how one would normally do it.
Karooooo banks more mid-teens growth (JSE: BYI)
The company keeps delivering
Karooooo released results for the second quarter and thus the half-year as well. It’s a solid set of numbers overall, with guidance for FY26 reaffirmed.
For the quarter, subscribers increased by 15% and net additions were 70,740 vs. 89,168 in Q1. This means that the rate of growth slowed down in Q2 vs. Q1, but the year-on-year growth remains strong. They grew subscribers by 15% year-on-year in South Africa, which is impressive given the maturity of the home market. Asia Pacific and the Middle East grew 21%, with Southeast Asia as the second largest contributor to group revenue. They are investing heavily there, with the sales headcount in Southeast Asia expected to be 70% higher by February 2026 vs. February 2025! Just to finish off on the geographical review, Europe increased 19%, while rest of Africa actually suffered a small dip.
Importantly, subscription revenue was up 20% in ZAR or 21% in USD, so average revenue per user (ARPU) increased. This is a key driver of earnings. There is some dilution to the profit margin though, as operating profit increased by 18% and earnings per share came in 15% higher. Cartrack’s operating profit margin was steady at 29%, while Karooooo Logistics dipped from 9% to 8%.
If we look over six months to take out some of the quarterly noise, Cartrack subscribers increased by 15%. The slower rate of growth is evident here as well though, with net new subscribers of 154,753 vs. 165,078 in the comparable period. Subscription revenue was up 19% in ZAR and 20% in USD. Operating profit increased by 18% and earnings per share was up 17%. Again, Cartrack’s margins were steady and Karooooo Logistics suffered a dip in margin from 11% to 8%.
You have to dig into the underlying report to get the cash from operations, as Karooooo doesn’t highlight the cash in the SENS commentary. Due to the capital-hungry nature of the business model from a working capital perspective (investment in devices), a period of growth often has a negative impact on cash. Sure enough, cash generated from operating activities for the quarter was up 22% before working capital changes and down 32.2% after working capital changes. They were still cash positive, just less so than in the comparable period.
So, aside from some growing pains in Karooooo Logistics (not to mention the volatility in earnings that is always going to be a feature of low-margin businesses), Karooooo is on the right track.
Vukile taps into a hot property market (JSE: VKE)
A bookbuild of around R2 billion is likely to be oversubscribed
Vukile Property Fund is among the best of the best when it comes to REITs. This means that there’s likely to be a bunfight among institutional investors over the shares that the company will issue to raise approximately R2 billion in fresh equity. We will no doubt find out early on Thursday morning, as accelerated bookbuilds tend to live up to their name.
Why does the group need more money? For acquisitions, of course! They’ve locked in two deals (one in each of South Africa and Iberia as the core markets). The South African deal is just waiting for Competition Commission approval. The Iberian deal is much earlier in the process, with Vukile in the offer stage with sole exclusivity on the opportunity (important as it avoids a bidding war).
As you can see, the details on the acquisitions are light. To help shareholders feel motivated to throw more money at Vukile, the company reminded the market that they are “confident” of the guidance of at least 8% growth in funds from operations per share and dividends per share.
Vukile’s share price is up 24.5% year-to-date.
Vunani expects a significant jump in earnings (JSE VUN)
Here’s some more good news for the company
Vunani released a trading statement for the six months to August 2025. They expect to report an increase in HEPS of between 32% and 52%, which means a range of between 8.8 cents and 10.2 cents.
This comes after the recent news of a merger between Vunani Fund Managers and Sentio Capital to create a fund manager of significant scale. Things seem to be on the up at Vunani, although there’s still limited liquidity in the stock and thus it’s difficult for institutional investors to really get involved here (assuming they would want to).
Nibbles:
- Director dealings:
- Des de Beer bought shares in Lighthouse Properties (JSE: LTE) worth R9.8 million.
- AECI (JSE: AFE) unfortunately needs a new CEO and for seemingly unhappy reasons. Holger Riemensperger has only been in the job since 2023 and has been driving a turnaround at the group. Due to “personal and family reasons” he will be stepping down from 15 October, which is literally straight away. It’s never nice to read that stuff. The market hates news like for this for more than just the underlying human reasons, with the share price down 8.5% on the day. Dean Murray, Executive Vice President of AECI Chemicals, has been appointed interim CEO. He’s been at the company for over 18 years in leadership positions. To find a permanent CEO, the company will consider external and internal candidates. Good luck to Murray!
- Cashbuild (JSE: CSB) announced that the subscription for shares representing a 60% controlling stake in Allbuildco Holdings (Amper Alles) has met all conditions. The effective date will be 1 December 2025.
- Metrofile (JSE: MFL) announced that Mango Holding (the offeror that wants to acquire Metrofile) has an interest of 9.96% in Metrofile’s shares via a total return swap with Standard Bank.
- Anglo American (JSE: AGL) announced the results of the dividend reinvestment plan. Holders of 3.37% of shares participated in this plan and elected to receive shares in lieu of cash.
- Curro (JSE: COH) announced that JPMorgan now holds 5.01% of the company’s shares in issue. I suspect that this is an underlying arbitrage trade based on the offer to shareholders that will involve Capitec (JSE: CPI) and PSG Financial Services (JSE: KST) shares.
- If you think you’re having a bad week, then spare a thought for the broker who experienced a system malfunction that broke the share prices of several small caps on Tuesday. Insimbi Industrial Holdings (JSE: ISB) was the first of these companies to explain what happened, with an announcement on Wednesday morning explaining that trades happened without any instruction from Insimbi shareholders. This includes the sale of 6.85 million shares by the CEO! They are hoping that these trades can be reversed. There were a number of companies affected, with Cilo Cybin (JSE: CCC) releasing a similar announcement later in the day. What a mess.
- I think we can safely conclude that Accelerate Property Fund (JSE: APF) shareholders have had enough of Michael Georgiou. A whopping 97.08% of votes were cast against his re-election as a director. Shareholders also aren’t interested in giving the directors any ability to issue shares without permission, with the same percentage of shareholders voting against that resolution as well. That makes sense, given the huge discount to NAV at which the fund is trading.
- Sirius Real Estate (JSE: SRE) announced that Fitch has reaffirmed its BBB investment grade credit rating with a stable outlook. This is of critical importance to property funds, as their cost of debt is a core input to their economic returns due to the extent of debt that they always use in the portfolio. Sirius is one of the best in the business, so this news about the credit rating is no surprise.
- Trustco (JSE: TTO) seems to have made some progress with the JSE regarding the audit of the financials for the period ended August 2024. I honestly don’t know who must be more excited for Trustco to leave the JSE at this point: the directors or the issuer regulation execs at the JSE!
Note: Ghost Bites is my journal of each day’s notable news on SENS. It reflects my own opinions and analysis and should only be one part of your research process. Nothing you read here is financial advice. E&OE. Disclaimer.
