Good morning Voornaam,
And what a good morning it is, with South African hearts filled with joy and national pride. Eskom is back, but so is the Webb Ellis Cup. I hope you made the most of the opportunity to celebrate our famous victory!
They really couldn't have made it more dramatic, could they? Three knockout games in a row with a one-point margin. I think the Netflix-quality sports documentary on Showmax will need to be called Chasing the One as a follow-up to Chasing the Sun that was based on the last world cup.
One thing MultiChoice has certainly been doing is chasing the bucks. We will have to wait and see how many new subscribers this brought into the fold, but my theory was always that the Rugby World Cup is a much stronger catalyst for subscriber growth than the FIFA World Cup. Those who watch international soccer likely already had DStv, especially as the more affordable tiers tend to be built around soccer. Bafana isn't even in the world cup and they definitely don't drive anyone to part with much money to watch them draw against global powerhouses like Eswatini and Namibia.
The Springboks? A different story entirely. And let's not forget the Proteas who are putting on a serious show in the Cricket World Cup. I can see a number of recent DStv subscribers at least sticking around until the end of the cricket. MultiChoice will certainly be hoping that this is the case.
Moving on from the incredible excitement of this weekend and the magic of the Boks, I have another home-grown story for you that is well worth a listen. I recently wrote critically about the pricing of the African Bank acquisition of two businesses from Sasfin. African Bank is used to giving credit but now it's my turn to do so, as they reached out to engage with me and opted to tell the broader strategic story to Ghost Mail readers.
This platform has always been and will always be free for you to read, so the support of corporates and brand partners is what makes it possible. This is why the Ghost Stories podcast with African Bank CEO Kennedy Bungane is a paid podcast. The way I work is that my questions are always independent and the content is objective and balanced. Paid or otherwise, I put my name behind the content.
So, to hear directly from Kennedy Bungane about the African Bank growth strategy and how the recent acquisitions fit in (Grindrod Bank, Ubank and Sasfin's two business units), listen to this podcast>>>
And whilst salads don't win scrums, I've had to remind myself after some high-intensity games and associated snacking that I actually don't scrum for a living. Salads do go quite a long way towards doing well in DD2 karting though, my sport of choice.
Time for some post-Bokke load shedding of my own!
Have a terrific day.
