Satrix is listing a China-focused exchange-traded fund (ETF) later in July and I spoke with its CEO, Helena Conradie, about it. China is the world’s second largest economy and one of the fastest growing, but should we go all in on one country? I spoke to Viv Govender from Rand Swiss on Friday and he’s positive about the China recovery from Covid-19 but does caution about geopolitical tensions with India and Hong Kong that could spill over into the economy.
Redefine announced in the last week that it is selling assets worth R7.7 billion. This helps reduce its debt, but as CEO Andrew Konig pointed out when I spoke to him on Wednesday the other side of the loan-to-value (LTV) equation is the value part and thus even asset sales may not solve the covenant risk. Redefine’s year-end is August and they’ll do new valuations then. The results due in October will give us better insight into how it’s managing its LTV ratios.
Altron issued a Sens this week confirming that the separate listing, in London and locally, of Bytes Technology UK will go ahead, although dates have not been confirmed. Irnest Kaplan gave us great insight into the Bytes business. It is very well positioned in the UK with its software, cloud and security offerings and this will be a great addition to the JSE for investors.
Facebook has seen a spate of large advertisers pull their advertising as adverts were appearing alongside hate speech on the platform. Initially the share price was under pressure, but it recovered, and we’ve seen this before. Most recently with Cambridge Analytica when advertisers pulled ads but eventually they all returned. This time may be different but any immediate hit to Facebook revenue is likely to be very modest especially as most who pulled their adverts are only doing so for a month.
Other podcasts for this week:
LISTEN: RMB’s Matete Thulare unpacks Naspers’s results and China’s PMI. Irnest Kaplan of Kaplan Equities on Bytes UK unbundling from Altron. Labat CEO Brian van Rooyen on being a global player in the cannabis industry.
LISTEN: Nick Kunze of Sanlam Private Wealth on the JSE trading update and local GDP data due on Tuesday. Rushil Jeena from Afrifocus talks about their managed tax-free portfolio structure. AlphaWealth’s Keith Mclachlan on the non-linear nature of assets when building a portfolio.