| The lack of diversity amongst the management of SA's biggest listed companies has long been under scrutiny, with black and female CEOs sorely lacking. Bidvest has addressed both of these with its new chief executive. Mpumi Madisa, who is 40, will be the youngest and only black female leader ofa top 40 company when she takes over the reins from Lindsay Ralphs as he retires at the end of the month. She will also be only the 3rd CEO of the services, trading and distribution company that was founded in 1988 by Brian Joffe. She doesn't come in cold though; she's been with the group since 2013 and was made CEO-designate in March of last year. Bidvest yesterday revealed the impact of Covid-19 on its performance last year. It's done a bit of cleaning up to make itself 'future-fit' as Madisa takes the business forward. Its shares rose, a did Metrofile's after the document storage business raised its annual dividend after a resilient performance. Meanwhile, Astral Foods will report lower full-year earnings but doesn't believe it's been affected as badly by Covid-19 as some of its peers. Grand Parade will report wider losses after its Burger King outlets and casinos were closed at the height of the lockdown. Also today, Harmony Gold has been given the final go-ahead to take over AngloGold Ashanti's remaining gold assets in SA and Jubilee Metals Group has had its mining licence in Zambia extended. Finally, Rand Swiss's Viv Govender says the much-watched Volatility Index is predicting something extraordinary this November. More to follow. I hope you have a good day. Stephen Gunnion Managing Editor, InceConnect
The latest from Ingham Analytics Ingham Analytics revisits the iron ore market in their latest mining Searchlight entitled "Steel yourselves". If you're a shareholder in Kumba (of which Anglo American owns 70%), BHP, Fortescue and Rio Tinto you'll be interested in what is driving iron ore prices to multi-year highs. There are several interesting graphs. Ingham Analytics say that iron ore futures prices are firm into 2021. If you are invested do you stay and is there still some meat on the bone for a new money investor? One hundred and eighty degrees from mining is tech stocks and "The devil incarnate, Softbank?" is topical given the tech share price gyrations of late. Japanese conglomerate Softbank is in the spotlight in unpacking mathematically complex trades that essentially amount to manipulation. | 