Shoprite appears to have had a surprisingly good start to its financial year, sending its shares higher yesterday. While there was concern that load shedding and bad weather would affect December sales, that appears not to have been the case. In particular, alcohol did well, with sales growing by more than a fifth - perhaps as more South Africans turned to the bottle to lighten up the hours of Eskom-induced darkness!

Its shares weren't the only gainers in a mostly down market yesterday: Naspers also rose after selling a small part of its holding in recently-listed Prosus. It says there is demand from international investors for the consumer internet group and it will return the net proceeds to shareholders through share buybacks.

Meanwhile, Ingham Analytics has provided some fascinating insight into Prosus after it failed in its bid to buy UK food delivery group Just Eat. You can access its latest report by following this link.

Also in today's newsletter, Reinet has benefitted from an improvement in British American Tobacco's share price last year and Equites Property Fund is building warehouses for a growing list of blue chip tenants.

Finally, in the latest in our series of articles on Section 12J, we outline the fundamentals of the tax-friendly investments.

I hope you have a good day.

Stephen Gunnion

Managing Editor, InceConnect