Category: SA Investing

Standard Bank Group CEO Sim Tshabalala has warned that South Africa risks losing entire industries to a flood of cheap Chinese imports, including from platforms like Temu and Shein, unless the country builds its own manufacturing capacity. Speaking on GIBS Business School’s Fate, Luck, and Choice podcast, Tshabalala pointed to the collapse of South Africa’s…

South Africa’s fiscal recovery is gathering pace, but the government isn’t chasing approval from credit-rating agencies. Instead, Treasury officials say the real verdict comes from investors, as bond markets increasingly price the country’s debt like investment-grade sovereigns. Stronger public finances, falling borrowing costs and renewed foreign investment are fuelling optimism, even as sceptics question whether…

August has long been the rand’s most unforgiving month, but this year the usual seasonal pressures are colliding with fresh uncertainty over South Africa’s monetary policy. A surprise Reserve Bank decision, shifting investor sentiment, and renewed expectations of higher US interest rates have left traders questioning whether the currency’s recent resilience can last. As foreign…

Kasada Capital Management, backed by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund and Accor, is opening Maison Grace, a private members’ club at the Cape Grace hotel on the V&A Waterfront, next month. It’s the latest marker of Cape Town’s rising wealth and status, with Henley & Partners tipping it to overtake Johannesburg as Africa’s richest city by…

Equal-sized commercial property markets, wildly different fortunes: office space in Cape Town now costs roughly double Johannesburg’s, and a new Gmaven study pins the difference squarely on governance rather than economics. Johannesburg’s strained finances, poor service delivery and corruption scandals are pushing capital, jobs and skilled workers toward the coast, while Cape Town’s construction boom,…

South Africa’s R3.6 trillion Public Investment Corporation is in open crisis. Deputy Finance Minister David Masondo, who chairs the PIC board, faces a shareholder vote on his removal at a July 27 meeting called by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, with six non-executive directors, including four in one day, having already resigned. The rupture stems from…

South Africa’s economy is feeling the ripple effects of a growing migrant exodus as workers leave amid rising fears and anti-immigrant tensions. From domestic services and delivery networks to factories and cross-border income flows, the sudden departures are exposing how deeply migrant labour is woven into daily life. As thousands return home, businesses and communities…

South Africa’s $219 billion (about R3.6 trillion) Public Investment Corp, custodian of government workers’ pensions, has suspended CEO Patrick Dlamini pending a probe into governance allegations, deepening a leadership crisis that’s seen a revolving door of executives. Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana says the government wasn’t involved in the board’s call, but he and Deputy Minister…

In 2016, BizNews broke news that the government had quietly sold off South Africa’s entire 10 million-barrel strategic oil stockpile at a steep discount, with no public tender. An anonymous industry insider sat down with us at the time and detailed how the deal – involving Glencore, Vitol and Taleveras, and rock-bottom storage fees –…

This excellent piece is drawn from star money manager Piet Viljoen’s weekly newsletter to his clients. Using crows – cautious by nature despite their reputation for loving shiny objects – as his central metaphor, Viljoen walks through five recent market manias (China, Covid vaccine makers, GLP-1 drugs, Rheinmetall, and memory stocks) where investors piled into…

MTN’s Ghana bid lands amid a diplomatic firestorm: Ghana rejected a state visit from President Ramaphosa this month after xenophobic violence in South Africa killed a Ghanaian national and prompted roughly 1,000 Ghanaians to flee home. Anti-MTN sentiment has flared in Ghana whenever such attacks make headlines, with MTN chairman Mcebisi Jonas issuing an unusually…

A $1 billion deal hands Abu Dhabi’s Adnoc 580 Shell-branded fuel stations across South Africa, plus wholesale, aviation and lubricants operations — its first foothold in the continent’s largest economy. Shell keeps its brand on the pumps via a long-term licensing deal, while Adnoc plans to sell 28% to a local empowerment partner. It’s the…