| Tuesday 21 December 2021 Good morning Voornaam,
December is supposed to be a quiet time in the local market, yet there always seems to be some unexpected action when most investors have gone on holiday. Ascendis tried to defer its AGM to January and appointed Andrew Marshall (the independent non-executive chairman) as acting CEO to replace outgoing CEO Mark Sardi.
There was high drama as an urgent court application was successful in the Gauteng High Court over the weekend, which forced Ascendis to stick to the original time of 9am yesterday for the AGM. Just before the meeting, another ominous announcement was released which reminded shareholders that the creditors are allowed to cancel the debt facilities and render them immediately payable if any director changes are not approved by the lenders.
The fireworks are far from over, as Ascendis has confirmed that shareho lder activist Harry Smit and Ascendis founder Gary Shayne (who originally built it through Coast2Coast) have both been appointed to the board.
The delisting theme continues unabated on the JSE. The latest potential casualty is OneLogix, a logistics company that primarily transports new vehicles around the country. The company has suffered from extremely low liquidity (sounds like a familiar story, right?) and the board is considering a delisting at a price of R3.30 per share. This is a 32.5% premium to the 30-day VWAP at close on 17 December, so the share price jumped 20.8% in response to the news.
Prosus has appointed Sharmistha Dubey as an independent non-executive director. This is notable because Dubey is the CEO of Match Group (Tinder etc.) - is Prosus planning a move into the online dating space? After all, they need to keep thinking of innovative ways to invest those Tencent dividends rather than paying them to s hareholders.
Conduit Capital (an investment holding company primarily invested in the insurance sector) has announced that Mmuso Capital has agreed to invest R500 million in the company as a long-term investor. This will be achieved through a new class of shares: redeemable convertible participating preference shares. Whenever you read something like that, you just know the lawyers are making a fortune along the way.
Visual International Holdings has been in discussions to acquire Agilitee, but the potential deal seems to have fizzled out. With a market cap of just R28 million, Visual is not a favourite among investors. There are far more offers in the market than bids.
Shareholders of CSG have voted in favour of the delisting of the company as part of a transaction linked to the take-private offer from ARC Fund of 35 cents per share. Importantly, there are other conditions that still nee d to be fulfilled for the transaction.
Marshall Monteagle PLC has released a trading statement for the year ended September. There's been a stunning turnaround from a headline loss per share of -USD0.029 in the comparable period to headline earnings per share of USD0.071 in this period.
Basil Read Holdings, which is suspended anyway and in business rescue, has been the victim of a cyberattack. Those criminals should've Googled first, as Basil Read isn't exactly flush with cash and ready to pay a ransom.
Zeder has been trading under cautionary since 27 May based on approaches from parties interested in acquiring portfolio investments. We are now on the sixth cautionary announcement since then, noting that Zeder continues to engage with these parties. Those hoping for a value unlock are having to exercise extreme patience.
Investec's buyout of its pref erence shareholders has achieved all required approvals and will be implemented in the next couple of weeks.
Today's feature articles are on the detailed terms of Old Mutual Private Equity's offer for Long4Life, ARM's acquisition of Bokoni Platinum from Amplats and Brait's successful R3 billion capital raise.
In case you haven't gotten to it yet, the latest Magic Markets podcast is a reflection on the themes we've seen from the first eight deep dives in Magic Markets Premium. Listen to it here.
Have a beautiful summer's day!
The Finance Ghost
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