Star 2021-09-15

Edward West edward.west@inl.co.za TYMEBANK, a digital smart bank that requires no documents and no monthly fees, has on-boarded 3.45 million customers in just over two years and plans to reach break-even in 2022. Insight into the performance of new banks and technology start-ups such as Rain is hard to come by as they are not listed, but the latest financial results from JSE-listed empowerment investment group African Rain Capital Investments (ARC), which is invested in both firms, sheds some light. The start-up bank is still small considering the likes of Capitec, which had some 14.9 million customers, Standard Bank with about 9.1 million customers and Absa with some 9.7 million customers, last year. ARC Investments’ share in TymeBank’s fair value amounts to R1.17 billion (2020:…

Dineo Faku dineo.faku@inl.co.za A CENSUS by Statistics SA (Stat SA)showed that 23 285 jobs were lost in mining between 2012 and 2019. Stats SA said the mining industry employed 514 859 individuals in 2019 down from 538 144 in 2012. “The biggest losses in jobs were recorded in mining of gold and uranium ore,” said Stats SA. Gold and uranium ore lost a total of 42 091 jobs. A total of 8 190 jobs were lost in mining of platinum group metals (PGM), while 4 249 jobs were lost in other stone quarrying, including stone crushing and clay and sandpits. StatsSA said employment figures from the report show that the mining workforce expanded by 3 737 individuals in the 2015 and 2019 period.…

Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za THE FREE MARKET Foundation (FMF) has urged the government to relax its labour policies in a bid to ease trade, boost economic activity and create much-needed employment. This comes as South Africa slipped down the rank- ings of the Economic Freedom of the World: 2021 Annual Report, falling into 84th position out of 165 countries. The report measures economic freedom – levels of personal choice, ability to enter markets, security of privately owned property, rule of law – by analysing the policies and institutions of 165 countries and territories. South Africa’s scores in key components of economic freedom were the size of government, legal system and property rights, access to sound money, freedom to trade internationally, and regulation of credit, labour and business. The report was released…

MIKE GRESTY IT HAS BEEN a while since we looked at the Naspers and Prosus discounts to net asset value (NAV) and some time has also passed since the Prosus-for-Naspers share exchange took place, thus allowing us a bit of a historic track record of these discounts since the deal was done. As it happens, September 11 also marked exactly two years since Prosus listed on the Euronext Amsterdam with an inward listing on the JSE, so this note is also quite timeous from that perspective. Certainly, the extreme volatility in both companies’ respective share prices, since all this regulatory noise in China started, creates the perception that their discounts have been relatively volatile. First, looking at the Naspers discount to NAV in Figure 1, we show the key…

Edward West edward.west@inl.co.za STOR-AGE, South Africa’s largest self-storage property fund, said yesterday that its average rental rate had increased by 7.1 percent year-on-year on a like-for-like basis for the five months to August 31 and the business model continued to demonstrate resilience. Occupancy increased by 3 percent, the group said in a business update yesterday. In the UK, like-for-like basis to August 31, the average rental rate increased by 5.7 percent year-on-year, while total occupancy increased by 10.4 percent. Stor-Age had agreed terms to enter a joint venture with Nedbank Corporate and Investment Bank, acting through Nedbank Property Partners, to develop two properties in Morningside and Bryanston at a cost of about R200 million. Construction was scheduled to start at both properties in the second…

Edward West edward.west@inl.co.za ATTACQ, the real estate investment trust, is repositioning out of the pandemic environment into a South Africa focused developer of premium precincts such as Waterfall City. The group, which has Mall of Africa in its portfolio, reduced its investments in central and eastern Europe focused MAS to only a passively held 6.5 percent stake from about 20 percent in the year to June 30. The group yesterday reported that distributable income fell 35.9 percent to 46.8 cents a share, largely due to no dividend from MAS, which had withheld dividends due to the effects of the pandemic in that region. Attacq also passed the 2021 dividend to retain capital for new develop- ments and to maintain long-term balance sheet strength. In addition, no…