MTN saw flames yesterday with a 7% drop and no SENS announcement in sight. The cool kids with Bloomberg terminals (I'm not one of them) knew what was going on before anyone else did, as headlines flashed about SIM card registrations in Nigeria. Any SIM cards not linked to a National Identity Number have now been barred - 75 million of them! Of course, this hits MTN's business in the short term. I would argue that these people still need cellphones and so many of the barred customers will return. The MTN Nigeria share price actually increased by nearly 1%, so perhaps the locals know something we don't. A core difference between investors in MTN Nigeria vs. MTN Group is that the former aren't worried about repatriation of funds. This is becoming a concern again in Nigeria and may have been a contributor to a souring of sentiment towards MTN yesterday.
The possibility of a mandatory offer by Northam Platinum to shareholders of Royal Bafokeng Platinum (RBPlat) is well and truly dead, for now at least. The independent board of RBPlat will not be appealing the ruling of the Takeover Regulation Panel. Unless Northam now moves through the 35% shareholding threshold, no mandatory offer will be forthcoming. The only offer on the table is the one by Impala Platinum.
The JSE normally requires companies to issue a circular within 60 days of announcing a transaction that requires such a document to go to shareholders. Ascendis has received dispensation from this requirement and the circular for the disposals of the various businesses to settle the debt will be sent out by 31 May (the deals were announced on 1 February). The SENS announcement doesn't explain why the dispensation was needed but all the fighting between the board and shareholder groupings may be part of the reason. After all, there are six directors being put forward for possible appointment by shareholders!
Spear REIT has released a trading statement for the year ended February 2022. The distribution per share will be between 67.51 cents and 69.25 cents, representing an increase of between 15% and nearly 18%. The pay-out ratio is expected to increase from 80% in the previous financial year to between 85% and 90%. The pay-out ratio increase is a major contributor to the growth in the distribution, as distributable income per share is only up by between 6% and 7% vs. the prior year. This is testament to how well Spear's portfolio has done at a time when the REIT industry was bouncing all over the place. At the midpoint of the guidance, Spear is trading on a yield of around 8%. That's genuinely impressive for a small property fund.
In other property news, Octodec has provided dividend guidance for the six months to 28 February. Although distributable income per share isn't expected to differ by more than 15% vs. the comparable period, there is an anticipated dividend of 50 cents per share. In the comparable period, there was no dividend declared. On an annualised basis (always a dangerous approach so be careful reading too much into this), the forward yield is around 11.8%.
The final property update for today is that Heriot REIT and related parties now hold 33.1% of Safari Investments. This is just below the threshold for a mandatory offer (35%). Heriot describes the Safari portfolio as "complementary" - read into that what you will.
Hulamin has been trading under cautionary since 14 October 2021 and another renewal has been issued. At this rate, it looks like the company is feeling inspired by how long the State of Emergency was. Shareholders are anxiously awaiting information on what the company is busy negotiating.
Don't fall behind on
Magic Markets episodes either, as the next one is released soon. In Episode 69, we unpacked the private debt asset class with the team from Westbrooke Alternative Asset Management. This is a yield-enhancing investment that is uncorrelated with listed debt market.
Be sure to listen to the episode here.That's it for today. Have a good one!
The Finance Ghost
