Classic Business

About a quarter of Pick n Pay shareholders voted against its executive pay policy recently, almost triggering a JSE rule that would have required the food retailer to formally take steps to tackle their concerns. The non-binding vote at the food retailer's recent virtual shareholder meeting shines a harsh spotlight on the issue of executive pay, which has come under the spotlight in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies are focusing on new approaches to deal with executive remuneration. Many companies are looking at their pay packages with a critical eye, especially increases and incentives. The pandemic has seen many companies doing the right thing – announcing pay cuts, cancellation of bonuses, supporting charities and freezing incentives. Investors and other stakeholders are focusing on executive pay now to ensure that remuneration, both now and in the future, reflects the insight of the company’s stakeholders.To talk about how boards and shareholders should be thinking about how the evaluate financial metrics and executive remuneration during times of crisis, Michael Avery sat down with Prof Brian Kantor, an economist and former chief investment strategist of Investec Wealth & Investment, and David Holland, a co-founder of Fractal Value Advisors and an adjunct professor at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, and senior advisor to Credit Suisse Europe since 2011

Sifiso Skenjana, chief economist and thought leadership executive at IQbusiness

CEO Daniel Pretorius

Rob Pietropaolo, joint head of trading at Unum Capital

Kyle Mandy, PwC tax technical policy leader

Imperial Logistics reported a 65% fall in full-year earnings, largely due to the impact of Covid-19 on revenue, associated once-off costs and impairments and further restructuring at home.The ground freight firm handled fewer containers in the second half of its financial year due to lockdown restrictions in various countries.

April was the worst affected, with South Africa trading at about 55% of normal volumes, 70% in African regions and Europe traded at about 50%, it said.Michael Avery spoke to CEO Mohamed Akoojee, about his outlook for the year ahead as most markets exit lockdown.

Rob Towell, portfolio manager at Sasfin Securities & Jordan Weir, trader at Citadel

Kokkie Kooyman, portfolio manager at Denker Capital; Greg Katzenellenbogen, portfolio manager at Sanlam Private Wealth & Nesan Nair, senior portfolio manager at Sasfin Wealth

Bheki Ntshalintshali, Secretary-General of Cosatu

On Saturday 22 August, the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy said in a statement that it had “issued the Request for Proposals (RFP) for the Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (RMIPPPP).” The headline of the statement said it was an “emergency power procurement programme”….But Chris Yelland energy analyst and MD of EE Intelligence, tells Michael Avery the programme has lacked urgency from the start and casts serious doubt about the prosed timeline of projects procured under the RMIPPPP, which are expected to be fully operational by no later than the end of June 2022 according to government. The bottom line is that we can expect load shedding to continue on and off till at least June 2022.