Star 2023-09-13

David Hurwitz tries to alley fears that the announcement of his departure is not amicable TRANSACTION Capital’s share price slumped more than 20% on the JSE yesterday morning, a day during which long-serving CEO David Hurwitz sought to allay fears that his departure was not amicable. Yesterday, the share price closed 16.43% lower at R5.85 on the JSE. On Monday, the financially ailing group surprised the market with the announcement of Hurwitz’s resignation, forecasts of lower than anticipated earnings and a shift in strategic direction at the group. The group, which controls used-car sales company WeBuyCars, the SA Taxi vehicle financing business and business outsourcing solutions group Nutum, and which has seen its share price slump more than 80% over 12 months, said in a statement that Hurwitz, “after a…

WILSON Bailey Holmes-Ovcon Multi- Choice, the South African company that operates DStv, a major satellite television service in Sub-Saharan Africa, has come under fire for the company’s coverage of the Rugby World Cup. Business Report broke the news of the Restaurant Association of South Africa (Rasa) inviting DStv management for urgent talks about the television group almost tripling the prices of its packages to the hospitality sector at the start of the Rugby World Cup 2023. DStv had purchased the exclusive rights to broadcast the competition in the country, leaving many in the country with fears of not being able to watching a second of the Rugby World Cup, as it was reported that SABC which had failed to secure the rights, would not be allowed to broadcast any matches.…

TOP SOUTH African companies, including the JSE’s Top 40, have gender disparities on representation of women in top leadership positions, painting a skewed economic transformation picture within the corporate sector. The JSE is one of Africa’s most competent stock exchanges and a major driver of investment on the continent, but women remain largely excluded from top leadership positions. Across South Africa, women comprise nearly half of the economically active population at 46%, findings by Just Share’s Women in leadership: Assessing gender equality in the JSE Top 40 report released yesterday. However, South African women only hold 35% of board positions, on average, or 180 out of 515 board positions among JSE Top 40 companies, while their representation in executive roles is a paltry 25% or 115 out of 468…

AIRPORTS Company South Africa (Acsa) expects to return to profitability in the next financial year after narrowing its after-tax loss to R143 million in the 2022/23 financial year, down from a R1 billion loss in the previous year. The last time Acsa reported a profit was in the pre-Covid era when profit plunged by 58.9% to R227m in the 2018/19 financial year after making a R7.1bn revenue, weighed down by weak domestic economy. The State-owned airports operator yesterday delivered a steady recovery and significant improvement in performance for the year to March 31, 2023, as Covid-19 related travel restrictions were progressively lifted in all major air travel markets. The group reported a 55% surge in revenue to R6bn for the 12-month period. Acsa continued to tightly control operating…

MOMENTUM Metropolitan has reached agreement with OUTsurance Group (previously Rand Merchant Investment Holdings – RMIH), to acquire RMIH’s share in the RMI Investment Managers Group (IMG), a deal that will increase Momentum’s asset management market participation significantly. The value of the deal was not disclosed. Momentum, which is today ex- pected to report financial results for the 12 months to June 30, has been a minority shareholder in IMG alongside RMIH since 2015, when the multi- affiliate investment management model was launched. The transaction increases Momentum’s minority stake in a range of independent, owner-managed investment businesses “with good growth potential”, a statement said yesterday. Momentum’s directors have forecast normalised headline earnings per share to increase between 15% to 22% for the year from 287.2 cents per share the…

DISCOVERY said yesterday that it would deliver a robust financial performance for the year to June 30 after its three business composites, South Africa, UK and Vitality Global, performed well. “High levels of engagement in the Vitality Shared-value model, together with the efficacy of the model, underpinned the group’s performance, despite a challenging and volatile macro-economic environment,” the group’s board said in a trading statement yesterday. Normalised profit from operations was expected to increase by between 22% and 27%, while normalised headline earnings was expected to increase by between 30% and 35%. The share price closed 2.47% higher at R149.24 on the JSE yesterday, a level that was 38% higher than a year ago. Normalised profit from operations in the SA Composite was expected to increase between 20% and 25%.…