Good Morning Voornaam,

Most Ghost Mail readers have come across from the old InceConnect publication. As a quick reminder, the daily JSE-listed company updates that used to be in InceConnect can still be found in Ghost Mail. Instead of being in the mailer, they are on the website in a daily article called Ghost Bites. This gives me more space to go into detail on the updates and lets you easily share it with others.

Today's highlights in Ghost Bites include FirstRand releasing a trading statement and inspiring my feature article on banks,the Takeover Regulation Panel throwing a cat among the Tongaat Hulett pigeons and Heriot REIT finally making an offer for Safari Investments.

I want to touch on the Heriot REIT offer for a moment. There's an important distinction between a "General Offer" and a "Scheme of Arrangement" - terms that you've probably seen before.

In a General Offer, the company making the offer is happy to acquire a variable number of shares. There's no guarantee of how many shareholders will accept the offer.

In contrast, a Scheme of Arrangement is usually an all-or-nothing deal in which shareholders vote on the transaction. If 75% approval is obtained, then the decision is binding on all shareholders. A company uses a Sche me of Arrangement when it wants to either buy all the shares in a company or none of them.

If an expropriation mechanism like a Scheme of Arrangement didn't exist, you could have a group of minority shareholders effectively holding the company hostage, which clearly isn't good for anyone except those shareholders.

If you are interested in mergers and acquisitions, you should check out the DealMakers content on Ghost Mail. There's a great selection of weekly deal updates and thought leadership articles from industry experts.

Also be sure to read Chris Gilmour's latest piece on the conflict in Ukraine and the impact of wheat exports (or lack thereof) on vulnerable economies. It includes some fascinating history around Russia.

Friday was a big day in the markets with US non-farm payroll numbers released. Wichard Cilliers, Head of Market Risk at TreasuryONE brings us this update:

"The rand steadily worked its way weaker before the US non-farm numbers sent it all the way to R15.55 as we ended last week. The US non-farm payroll number printed at 390,000 vs. 325,000 expected. Unemployment is unchanged at 3.6%, but the expectation was for unemployment to print at 3.5%. The US dollar firmed after the release. The non-farm print has caused equity indices to lose some ground, with the S&P 500 ended the week with loss of over 1,5%. Importantly, we have continued to see the rand failing to break below the R15.40 level.

And despite a promise of an increase in production by the OPEC countries, we have not seen a move in the Brent Crud e price, currently at $119 per barrel."

For business owners, I would like to point you towards TreasuryONE's article on the importance of the 13-week cash flow forecast. TreasuryONE offers far more than just foreign exchange services, as you'll discover at this link.

On Wednesday evening at 6pm, Westbrooke Alternative Asset Management is hosting a webinar on their offshore fixed income investment, known as Westbrooke Yield Plus. This product has achieved a cash yield of 6.7% in GBP over the past twelve months. For those with larger portfolios who are looking for diversification, this is a great opportunity to find out more. You can refer to this article, which includes information on how to sign up for the webinar.

For the podcast fans, the latest Magic Markets episode is a sneak peak at Magic Markets Premium. In this show, we touched on Lululemon, Nike, Starbucks, Pepsico, Visa, Simon Property Group and Top Gun. Don't miss it! You can access the show at this link.

Good luck with the start of your week!