Yesterday was a somewhat historic day on the JSE. Simply put - it broke. Immense volumes traded in Naspers the prior day caused systems to fail, resulting in the market only opening at 1:30pm.
SENS still worked, so announcements came out thick and fast in the morning as market participants anxiously waited for trading to begin. To make it worse, Tencent released results in Hong Kong, so traders were itching to take views on Naspers and Prosus once more. Naspers bounced over 4% yesterday after a horrible previous day.
Investors in Grand Parade Investments were smiling yesterday, as the company closed 4.6% higher on the news that the sale of the Burger King business may still happen. Through negotiation with the Competition Commission, a revised set of merger conditions has been agreed. This doesn't mean that the saga is over, as the Competition Tribunal will have the final say, but it's a major step in the right direction.
Tower Property Fund is currently trading under cautionary, with RDC Properties Limited expected to make an offer to acquire the group for R4 per share. I sold out during the looting as I didn't want to take the risk of the acquirer getting cold feet while half the country was on fire. I knew I was leaving behind a small excess over and above the traded price at that time, but I also missed out on a dividend. Tower has announced a dividend of 22.44 cents per share, a pre-tax yield of 6% on the current share price.
We also saw a trading statement from property group NEPI Rockcastle, which noted that distributable earnings per share for the six months to June 2021 has dropped by 10.3%. There is no cash dividend for shareholders, with the company electing a capitalisation issue instead (an issue of shares in lieu of a dividend).
The lead story this morning goes to Curro, a fascinating company to analyse for insights into the general health of South African consumers. Other important stories include earnings announcements from Old Mutual and DRDGOLD, as well as an acquisition of more German properties by Sirius.
Make sure you stay up to date with Magic Markets episodes by
listening to Episode 38, in which we discussed four US-listed stocks: Corsair, Callaway, McKesson and Moderna. Operating in very different industries, there's something to learn from each one.
Good luck for hopefully a normal day of JSE operations!
The Finance Ghost
