Category: News
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SA’s quiet break-up: Why the enclave economy is now the most important investment thesis in the country
This article was first published by The Common Sense The Common Sense editorial board makes a provocative but increasingly hard to dismiss argument: South Africa isn’t heading for collapse — it’s fragmenting into a de facto federation of privately and regionally administered enclaves. With 51% of municipalities insolvent, 72% facing severe cash flow pressures, and fewer…
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Andy Burnham enters No. 10: Is Britain’s new PM a class warrior or Blair 2.0?
Andy Burnham becomes UK prime minister as early as July 17, following his emphatic by-election victory in Makerfield — and markets are already trying to read the man. Bloomberg Opinion’s Rosa Prince argues the appointment of James Purnell as Downing Street chief of staff is the tell: a business-friendly Blairite technocrat at Burnham’s side suggests…
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Johannesburg on the brink: Business groups demand state intervention as city faces financial collapse
South Africa’s commercial capital is effectively bankrupt, according to a Genesis Analytics study commissioned by BLSA and Business for South Africa. Consultant Lael Bethlehem warned Thursday that Johannesburg may not survive until November’s municipal elections without a provincial administrator being appointed — a politically toxic outcome for the ANC. Finance Minister Godongwana has set a…
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Ivo Vegter: Musk’s trillionaire status a fantasy – SpaceX’s physics problem blows up the valuation
Ivo Vegter delivers a forensic dismantling of SpaceX’s post-IPO valuation, currently above $2 trillion despite the company losing $1.9 billion on $4.7 billion in revenue in Q1 2026 alone. The core promise — orbital AI data centres — collapses on first-principles physics: cooling a single gigawatt facility in space would require 14,000 ISS-scale radiator systems.…
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BN Daybreak: Mark Pincus on consumer AI; SA election violence; and the Strait of Hormuz
Listen here The Zynga founder and OpenAI investor can’t understand why analysts cap consumer AI at $500 billion in what he sees as a $6 trillion market – he thinks that gap is exactly where the real opportunity lies. Oil spiked as Iran struck a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz mid-negotiation, OpenAI stalled…
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The BizNews Edge: African Bank’s Billion-Rand Acquisition Trap
Listen here African Bank swung to a loss of nearly a billion rand after a four-year spree of buying and bolting together three banks to build a full-service lender, and the bad debt charge is still climbing. The contrast is brutal: a focused platinum-and-chrome miner, Tharisa, is printing cash with profit up more than sixfold,…
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AI won’t fire your banker — but it will shrink his bonus
Generative AI is already reshaping white-collar work, but the deeper disruption in finance may not be the job losses everyone fears — it may be the bonus erosion nobody sees coming. Academic research shows AI’s productivity gains flow disproportionately to less experienced workers, compressing the performance gap between stars and journeymen. Banks including Goldman Sachs…
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Before you pack for London, read this: Why you’re better off in Jozi
This article was first published by The Common Sense South Africa’s professional class has long measured success by the ability to leave — for London especially. But a striking analysis from The Common Sense, written during the publication’s visit to a major London policy forum, challenges that assumption directly. On housing affordability, healthcare access, cost of…
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Anthea Jeffery: Botswana beats SA at its own game — here’s how to fix Mining
South Africa ranks 64th out of 68 mining jurisdictions on policy attractiveness, according to the Fraser Institute’s 2025 Annual Survey — despite possessing one of the richest mineral endowments on earth. Neighbouring Botswana, with far less mineral wealth, ranks second in the world. The Institute of Race Relations has responded with its Growth and Employment…
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Duarte da Silva: Gold’s $1,500 fall from grace – Fear trade done, long thesis intact
Gold has shed its entire 2026 gain, dropping 27% from January’s $5,589 record to hover just above $4,000 — but veteran market insider Dr Duarte da Silva argues investors misreading this as a structural breakdown are looking at the wrong signal. Two forces hit simultaneously: the 17 June US-Iran memorandum of understanding collapsed the geopolitical…
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Prof Diane Coyle on BizNews: Manchester’s mayoral miracle playbook could remake Britain
Andy Burnham’s near-decade running Greater Manchester has produced the UK’s fastest-growing regional economy outside London — and now, with Keir Starmer’s resignation opening the door to a Burnham premiership, the world wants to know how he did it. Cambridge economist Diane Coyle, who helped architect the Manchester strategy through two independent economic reviews, identifies the…
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DA’s Hill-Lewis draws the line: Mobs don’t enforce immigration law, the state does
With a June 30 deadline issued by anti-immigrant protesters looming, Democratic Alliance leader and Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has delivered the GNU coalition’s sharpest rebuke yet of South Africa’s xenophobic violence wave. Calling out every tier of government and law enforcement by name, Hill-Lewis rejected the scapegoating of foreign nationals — arguing South Africa’s…
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Boardroom Talk: Welcome back Michael Sachs – The man who said no to Zuma — and yes to SA
Michael Sachs headed National Treasury’s budget office from 2015 to 2017, a period when President Jacob Zuma was pushing a multi-trillion rand nuclear build programme that economists warned would have bankrupted the country. Sachs was among the officials who resisted. He left government in 2017 and moved into academia. President Cyril Ramaphosa has now appointed…
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DA supports ANC to pass R71-billion Metro budget, political hits, by-elections result | The Electoral Roadshow with Wayne Sussman
In the latest edition of The Electoral Road Show, Chris Steyn and elections analyst Wayne Sussman talk about Ekurhuleni finally managing to pass a R71-billion budget thanks to the Democratic Alliance (DA) supporting the African National Congress (ANC). Sussman warns: “…we know the Freedom Front did far better in Ekurhuleni than the City of Johannesburg…
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BN Daybreak: Bafana Bafana makes history, Phala Phala updates, and the AI chip boom
Listen here South Africa made World Cup history as Bafana Bafana beat South Korea to reach the knockout stages for the first time ever. Oil slides for a fourth straight session on Iran deal oversupply, and Micron surges 11% on AI chip demand. The bigger question hanging over the morning: what has President Ramaphosa still…
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Bafana Bafana’s moment of truth: Every path to the World Cup knockouts — and how likely each one is
Listen here Bafana Bafana are one result away from making World Cup history — but the path to the Round of 32 is complicated. With one point from two games and South Korea standing in their way on Thursday morning (3 AM SA time), Hugo Broos’ men still have multiple routes through. The question is:…
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Boardroom Talk: SA’s municipalities are bleeding billions — and the woman tasked with stopping it can only watch
Annually, Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke tables a report documenting the precise dimensions of local government failure. The latest one (2024-25) was released this morning. True to form, the numbers continued to worsen or stagnate. R145 billion in irregular expenditure since 2021, R36 billion last year. Only 39 of 257 municipalities with clean audits. Not a single…
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Daron Acemoglu on BizNews: World Cup teaches us what extremists don’t want to hear
Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu uses the World Cup — and Germany’s Turkish-Syrian match-winner Deniz Undav — to demolish a central myth of our polarised age: that diversity and national pride are incompatible. Every serious World Cup contender fields players from immigrant families, yet billions of fans cheer them as national heroes without a second thought.…
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The BizNews Edge: Nedbank, Grindrod and the coal stock no one was watching
Listen here Nedbank confirmed its guidance this morning, and its East Africa deal is weeks from closing – a transformation most investors are still underpricing. Grindrod’s Port of Maputo posted extraordinary volumes, but the share may already be priced for perfection. A small coal miner no one follows just disclosed an 1,800% earnings swing, and…
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The Economist: Secret to World Cup glory? Open borders beat big budgets
The Economist’s data-driven dissection of World Cup success delivers a counterintuitive verdict: immigration beats wealth. Wealth, population, height, and geography explain 70% of performance variation — but the sharpest competitive edge comes from embracing foreign- born talent. Morocco reached the semi-finals with 14 of 26 players born abroad; France’s squad is almost entirely children of…