| It seems that real estate investment trusts, the darlings of the stock exchange until a year or two ago, have lost their allure. The Covid-19 pandemic has had a lot to do with it but some REITs came into the crisis in an already weak position. Rebosis is one of those. Its loan to value remains above its peer group despite asset sales and it can't pay a distribution this year after failing the solvency and liquidity test it's obliged to conduct, threatening its status as a going concern. Meanwhile, Hyprop is in a far better position. It has reduced its loan to value - which measures debt against the value of its properties - to below 40% and says it will soon make an announcement on the interim dividend it's due to pay by the end of the month. Oceana Group has raised its final dividend nicely after a good year for the fisheries group. Alexander Forbes is paying a dividend too, but lower than last year's. More on those stories in your final newsletter for the week, along with updates from Exxaro and Ellies, which will report a return to profitability as early as today. It's Friday, so all the latest mergers and acquisitions news courtesy of our partners at DealMakers. Finally, meet some of the winners in the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants' Top-35-under-35 competition, in which SAICA recognises the best young chartered accountants. I hope you have a good day. Stephen Gunnion Managing Editor, InceConnect
The latest from Ingham Analytics Hot on the heels of their assessment of Capitec in "Froth back?" on Thursday, Ingham Analytics have issued "Neither a borrower nor a lender be" which looks at South African banks from a macro view. The conclusion - fundamentals indicate a pricing disconnect with risk to bank share prices to the downside. How do you trade this short term? With environmental, social, governance or ESG criteria becoming more prominent for investors, a recent Rio Tinto debacle being an example of how not to do ESG, "BHP scopes up" issued on Tuesday gives insights from a mining point of view. | 