Classic Business

There’s been lots of movement on the land question in the last two weeks. Two weeks ago the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DLRD) announced that members of the public will be able to apply to lease 700 000 hectares of underutilized or vacant state land in seven of the provinces. A new Expropriation Bill, published on Friday 08th October, has made clear the circumstances under which property can be expropriated and, where appropriate, that compensation for expropriation can be zero. The newly gazetted Expropriation Bill sets out exactly under which scenarios it would be just and equitable for no compensation to be paid when land is expropriated in the public interest. The bill will now enter the parliamentary process before becoming law. Bulelwa Mabasa, director at Werksmans Attorney and member of the president’s advisory panel on land, and human rights lawyer Richard Spoor, both laud the Bill a major improvement and step forward in ensuring the sanctity of property rights remain protected in South Africa.

Nick Kunze, portfolio manager at Sanlam Private Wealth & Charl Bester, wealth & portfolio manager at Kruger International

In this weekly feature Michael Avery gets up close and personal with South Africa’s business and political economy leaders, to uncover what makes them tick, keeps them up at night and keeps them going through the Covid storm. Michael Avery’s guest this week is now arguably the most senior and powerful woman in finance after the resignation of Maria Ramos from Absa. She started her career at Momentum in 1990 to 1999, responsible for sales and marketing for the group and Momentum Administration Services. She filled executive level positions at Stanlib and Old Mutual before joining Allan Gray in 2009. And then completed the circle when she was appointed deputy CEO of Momentum Metropolitan (previously, MMI Holdings) on 1 March 2018. Jeanette Marais, shares how she’s more of a creator and fixer and has a strong message for government.

Keith McLachlan, fund manager AlphaWealth

Mark Swilling, professor of Sustainable Development in the School of Public Leadership, Stellenbosch University

Rob Kane, board chairperson of the Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID)

In this week’s episode of The Brandfather, Jeremy Sampson MD of Brand Finance Africa, rails against corporate avarice in the face of massive shareholder value destruction. Avery says he likes CEO Ian Moir, always found him approachable, but he made possible the worst ever foreign acquisition in this country’s business history with David Jones, sinking the woollies share into the proverbial locker along with it. Investors have suffered. Woolworths’ share price, which hit R108 in November 2015, is now R33.66 — value destruction exceeding R60bn. But investors were outraged last week when Woolworths revealed it would pay Moir R43m this year, and he stands to get another R34.3m as a "restraint of trade" payment in 2023. That means, as he’s leaving, he stands to get R77m. And this after earning R191m in the five years before that. Now where are the shareholders holding the remco to account here?

Prof Adrian Puren, head of the Centre for HIV and STIs at NICD

The President announced that the Nedlac partners have agreed to an historic economic compact but the details are still to be released but no doubt infrastructure will be a core pillar. And in April we had calls from the private equity industry to increase prudential limits on asset allocation imposed by Regulation 28 of The Pension Funds Act. Throw in the spectre of prescribed assets and you have a potentially poisonous cocktail for the economy. Done the right way, and it could present a pathway to prosperity out of South Africa’s Covid induced economic depression.

To discuss how this all comes together Michael Avery sat down with Leon Campher, CEO of Asisa, the industry body representing almost R8 trillion in private savings, which has recently come out and said prescribed assets are not a concern for its members.

Martin Smith, portfolio manager at Anchor Capital & Nadir Thokan, portfolio manager at Corion Capital