The market that I’m trading with sheer enjoyment — and with a fair bit of success — is the one for second-hand padel bats. These carbon fibre dingbats fetch a pretty penny brand new, with so-called top-of-the-range bats going for anything between R5,500 and R9,000. I’d rather buy 100 Weaver Fintech shares and risk tennis elbow with a cheap plank. That said, padel is possibly the most addictive game I have played, perhaps surpassed only by the controversial, fast-moving and downright dangerous “polens” we played regularly as laaities outside Mario’s Café (until someone tore an earlobe and lost their dignity).
Ambitious amateurs addicted to a sport means persistent investment in the best equipment available. Pity Holdsport Group is no longer listed on the JSE. But I do suspect it’s only a matter of time before an investment banker with decent ball skills bundles together a conglomeration of padel courts to lob onto the market (older readers may, I suspect, remember the disastrous golf estate venture Acc-Ross/Pinnacle Point from some years ago).
Anyway, back to padel bats. Tools maketh the player, according to some. But I maintain quite openly that an old wooden swing bat would do the job. It’s just a matter of tuning your strokes to the eccentricities of the bat — with some being springy, some offering adhesive for spin and others just bricking it (my personal favourite). In any event, I scour the padel WhatsApp groups and marketplaces for used bats and often chance on a seller desperate to offload slightly outmoded equipment.
I now, to my wife’s dismay, have a tray full of padel bats that collectively cost the equivalent of what one Whalebone TXD Wallcrusher Extreme Mk2 (power version) would set back an enthusiastic (and well-heeled) punter. I understand my wife’s anguish. I already have a shelf of second-hand Head Ti.S6 tennis racquets in the garage, based on the same “You can learn to play well with anything” philosophy. You may scoff. But my capital expenditure requirements for sport over the longer term are now pretty much the stuff of petty cash. Doubly so, if the plethora of new padel developments in the southern suburbs of Cape Town and plans to build more capacity in the deep south crimp prices for court bookings under competitive pressure. I can only hope to remain injury-free long enough to cash in on these prudent bits of capital allocation.
Speaking of capital considerations, our Hot Stocks cover is hardly a week on the shelves and I note that some of the South Africa Inc shares mentioned in that piece have already done a little shimmying. At the time of writing, Cashbuild, Italtile and KAP Industrial had all registered gains of about 10%, an encouraging start to the year. I also see Rainbow Chicken perched at a 12-month high, gaming group Tsogo Sun up almost 5% and tech conglomerate iOCO edging ever higher. And here I am, trying to bottom-pick Montauk Renewables and taking a fairly uninformed fling on ASP Isotopes; it only underlines my ongoing tendency to be determinedly (and often destructively) contrarian.
My most enduring investment, Namibian consumer conglomerate Nictus, was the top performer on the Namibia Securities Exchange in 2025
What I can quietly celebrate, though, is that my most enduring investment, Namibian consumer conglomerate Nictus (which I made more than 20 years ago), was the top performer on the Namibia Securities Exchange (NSX) in 2025. Nictus — which takes in furniture retailing, vehicle dealerships, car rental, tyres, autoglass, financial services and property — returned 36% over the year, which, I might remind readers, is still a notch behind the JSE’s all share index gain of 37%. It’s good to see some life in the Nictus share price, and I even went on a frantic search through my safe to make sure I still had the stock certificate. The share had been static for so long that I was reduced to merely noting the annual dividend payments.
There were other movers on the NSX. SBN Holdings grew 34%, Capricorn Group 27%, Mobile Telecommunications Co 21% and FirstRand Namibia 17%. Hopefully the NSX market moves in 2025 reflect growing optimism in Namibia’s efforts to extract strong long-term growth from oil and gas exploration, as well as selected green commodities.
But perhaps enthusiasm should be tempered for now. Namibian business publication The Brief notes that despite the strong price performance among leading NSX counters, trading activity on the Namibian bourse remained subdued. Statistics provided by Cirrus Capital showed the second-lowest year for NSX value traded since 2012, though there was improved activity towards the end of the period. Just for comparison, FirstRand Namibia saw total share trading turnover of N$151.8m, with Capricorn Group at N$77.1m and SBN Holdings at N$46.6m. This is a tiny but interesting market that remains owned by its stockbroking members. I realise how flippant this sounds, but the NSX might reach a wider investment audience if it piggybacks on a larger trading platform such as the JSE.
Finally, there is a slight departure in the Money section this week, which features a debate around penny stock Labat Africa. Personally, I remain largely undecided about Labat, having watched its unconvincing morphing over many years. I’m more than happy to hold a few shares for sheets and squiggles, but even after taking in both sides of the story, I don’t think I’m ready to fling in the household savings. Let me know if the story hits home, because there are a few more shares on the JSE where investors have opposing viewpoints.
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