EDITOR’S NOTE

A treasure chest of shareholder expertise

BUDDING INVESTORS WILL surely find this edition a most valuable reference document as they scour the JSE for opportunities. Finding the stockbroker best suited to your particular needs is a critical component of successful and enduring investing. I believe our stockbroker rankings, which cover a multitude of angles, have become a definitive reference point.

So once again my heartfelt thanks to the brains trust at Intellidex for delivering authoritative and illuminating copy — on time and with the minimum of fuss.

Talking of investments, I sometimes have to pinch myself when I see some of the value destruction on the JSE.

If an investor had been in a coma for 10 years and was suddenly roused, he or she would find it extremely hard to comprehend Nampak at 85c, PPC at 72c and Hulamin at 100c. A decade ago these iconic industrial counters might have been considered “unbreakable”. I made the point in a Business Day commentary earlier this month that packaging stalwart Nampak was now smaller than Bowler Metcalf in terms of market capitalisation. Bowler’s turnover is a sliver of Nampak’s top line!

Since then Nampak’s market value has fallen below that of another small packaging group, Transpaco. The irony here, of course, is that Transpaco bought a couple of noncore packaging assets from Nampak a few years back.

Some cynical correspondents have made reference to the fact that our respected finance minister, Tito Mboweni, previously served as Nampak chair and that Eskom CEO André de Ruyter was the CEO.

The share price certainly suggests Nampak is being badly boxed in, and I wonder whether a rights issue is not on the cards.

Staying with that topic, the ink had hardly dried on Shawn Stockigt’s rights issue feature (see page 29) when African Rainbow Capital Investments (ARC) announced a R750m rights offer — pitched at a deep discount to the investment company’s last stated NAV.

I wonder whether enthusiastic minority shareholders will back the rights offer, having watched the share dribble down to such desultory levels. Slightly alarming is the admission that – aside from providing additional capital to invest in the ARC Fund and reinforcing existing portfolio holdings — part of the proceeds will be mobilised to settle outstanding fund management fees.

It’s funny how some stakeholders always manage to be “in the money” — even when shareholders are out of pocket. ●