Classic Business

Chantal Marx, head of equity research at FNB Wealth and Investments & Petri Redelinghuys, founder of Herenya Capital Advisors

As much of the world gears up for a second round of lockdowns, and restrictions on everyday life grow ever tighter, a group of infectious-disease epidemiologists and public-health scientists have come together to propose an alternative. The Great Barrington Declaration was spearheaded by Martin Kulldorff from Harvard Medical School, Sunetra Gupta from Oxford University and Jay Bhattacharya from Stanford University Medical School. Michael Avery speaks to Kulldorff and two of the three prominent South Africans who have lent their support to the declaration, financial services entrepreneur Magda Wierzycka – founder of Sygnia – and Nick Hudson of thinktank PANDA.

Mandisa Diza, monitoring and evaluation specialist at Tshikululu Social Investments

Prof Tshilidzi Marwala, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the UJ & Deputy Chair of the Presidential Commission on the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Cobie Legrange, co-founder of Rex Solom Invest

What are the key investments going to be over the next 18 months if we look just beyond the horizon of Covid? It certainly won’t be in the less than 1% of the investment universe that is SA Inc. Anchor still projects a 12-month return of 11.3% for SA equities and a 12-month return of 5% in US$ for global equities. Peter Armitage, CEO of Anchor Capital, tells Michael Avery that SA pension funds are taking massive concentrated risks.

Investors simply have to get exposure to the assets in the world producing US$ growth to achieve returns

Two out of every three applications for Covid-19 relief loans are being rejected, a sign that desperate entrepreneurs either have no realistic chance of surviving the lockdown or that banks are being too conservative in lending to businesses eligible for relief assistance. This emerged from figures provided on Sunday by the Banking Association SA (Basa). The Covid-19 relief loans were the cornerstone of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s R500bn economic stimulus package designed to help the country recover from the lockdown, which closed vast parts of the economy.The line taken by BASA seems to be that businesses are reluctant to incur more debt. But from what Michael Avery is seeing two thirds of applicants are rejected, so its still a risk tolerance issue from the banks' side. Avery spoke to Bongiwe Kunene, MD of Banking Association of SA, about the reasons behind the schemes underwhelming impact and what was being considered to improve uptake.

Wayne McCurrie, portfolio manager, FNB Wealth and Investments & Craig Pheiffer, chief investment strategist @Absa Stockbrokers & Portfolio Management

Due to the impact of COVID-19 on the South Africa economy and particularly the poor, the value of Impact Investing has been amplified and investors realise the integral role it plays as part of their investment portfolio. This is according to Impact Investing South Africa (IISA), who have compiled a report not only highlighting the importance of impact investing in South Africa, but also provides valuable insights into the measurement and management practices of impact investment in South Africa.

Michael Avery speaks to Dr Susan De Witt, Co-Lead Secretariat Impact Investing South Africa at the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship inside UCT’s Graduate School of Business; Dugan Fraser, Director of the Centre for Learning on Evaluation and Results inside the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management at Wits; & Elias Masilela, the Chairperson of Impacting Investing SA, National Planning Commissioner and former CEO of the PIC.

Tobie van Zyl, CEO and co-founder