It feels like the good times are back … and, bearing in mind the dreaded commentator’s curse, that is a dangerous thing to suggest.
Some encouraging developments are stacking up. The JSE has made a 40% gain over a year. That’s not the all share index, but JSE Ltd, which operates a number of trading platforms, including the eponymous local bourse.
There was a time when the JSE Ltd was likened to British American Tobacco — an ex-growth company characterised by its low earnings multiple and high dividend yield.
The share now trades on an earnings multiple of nearly 12, with a still enticing historic yield of almost 6.5. This might be modest for a business that is shifting ever closer to fintech and data dissemination, but the price shift highlights how the current market volatility drives fee-generating activity across multiple trading platforms.
Speaking of the JSE, there have been a few new listing applications — albeit inward secondary listings. A couple have already been embroiled in corporate action, which should ensure that the counters attract wider market attention.
Then there is the glittering gold price — which has caused one miner to sell assets into the glowing sentiment and another to make a sizeable acquisition at the rich point in the cycle. Others seem to be happy just raking in the cash that will come with the buoyant bullion price.
Coal giant Exxaro finally bust open its bulging piggy bank with a potentially game-changing deal, and Sasol seems to have earned a more sympathetic ear from the market after a well-received capital markets day engagement this month.
Assurer Old Mutual has a new CEO, who will hopefully extract value and find new growth channels, while consumer goods giant Tiger Brands continues its refocusing under CEO Tjaart Kruger with the sale of its deciduous fruit operation (which, many moons ago, was separately listed as Langeberg Foods).
Even the small caps got in on the action, with Blue Label Telecoms making plans to separately list Cell C, offshore property group MAS PLC finding itself subject of an unsolicited buyout offer, and controversial helium business Renergen rocketing after a buyout offer from soon-to-be-listed ASP Isotopes (first covered in the FM six months ago).
At the time of writing, South Africans were seeing some unconventional diplomacy as President Cyril Ramaphosa met with US President Donald Trump, with Ramaphosa flanked by career politicians and former champion golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, as well as golfing enthusiast and heavyweight businessman Johann Rupert. I’m not quite sure what to make of the slightly awkward proceedings. But then, no-one knows more about diplomacy than golfers and billionaires. Commentator’s curse, much?
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