BizNews Radio (OLD)
Welcome to BizNews Radio where we interview top thought leaders and business people from South Africa and across the globe.
The Editor's Desk: SA is in recession, but what can we really do?
With South Africa officially in recession, the government is talking up the possibility of a multi-billion rand stimulus package to restore growth. But how realistic is this? After all, the rand is weakening, the country is already carrying a heavy debt load, and tax revenues are falling. In this episode,…
Futuregrowth the first SA institutional investor in payments disruptor Yoco
JOHANNESBURG — Yoco, the makers of a card reader device that connects with a merchant’s smartphone or tablet, has raised a Series B round of US$16m (R230m) led by Partech, a venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley and including the likes of South African-based Futuregrowth. Yoco is a fascinating local business as…
Andrew Canter upbeat about direction SA's going, despite its economic challenges
JOHANNESBURG — The Chief Investment Office of Futuregrowth, Andrew Canter, was in the spotlight in 2016 when the fund manager took the unprecedented step of halting lending to six major SOEs. After reviewing these SOEs and conducting further reviews, Futuregrowth cleared some of them. Earlier this year, Futuregrowth also made the news…
The Editor's Desk: How do you dodge the falling rand and come out on top?
The rand is officially slumping and it looks like the fall could continue as emerging markets currencies remain under fire. What is a South African to do in such an environment? Well, the biggest trick is investing offshore, hedging against the rand with dollar, euro, or pound investments. Alec Hogg…
From Mpumalanga to the rest of SA: How Khaya Matchegue is building a fashion empire
JOHANNESBURG — Entrepreneur Khaya 'Angel' Matchegue, who is the owner and founder of fashion and design company Lechero, has found a brilliant niche in designing school uniforms, work apparel and other clothing. She started the business with just an idea but is now building it out, employing others and buying…
Improving education, one school at a time: How SA's PfP programme is making a difference
JOHANNESBURG — Everybody knows that the state of South Africa's education system is pretty appalling. But one programmed dubbed Partners for Possibility (PfP) wants to help ensure quality education for all school children in the country by the year 2025. PfP targets doing this by establishing co-learning partnerships between School Principals and Business Leaders. In…
The Editor's Desk: Trump's SA tweet is the act of a man in crisis
When Trump tweeted that he wanted to investigate land expropriation and "the large scale killing of farmers" in South Africa, he sent the rand into a tailspin. But the tweet says a lot more about the president than it does about EWC in South Africa. In this episode, Felicity Duncan…
From Pierneef to Sekoto: Top Strauss & Co expert gives us some art investing tips
JOHANNESBURG — Fine art auction house, Strauss & Co, is one of Johannesburg's cultural gems. Tucked away in an office in upmarket Houghton, I had the privilege to go and interview Wilhelm van Rensburg, who is a respected senior art specialist at Strauss & Co. The conversation in this podcast…
Want to send your child to an overseas university? Start saving R17 000 per month now
JOHANNESBURG — This interview will pique the interest of many a parent. There's no denying that it's time to worry about where South Africa's education system, and particularly its universities, are headed in the next few years. With a sluggish economy and policies such as free tertiary education for poorer…
Servest's R10bn journey: How RMB Corvest, Kenton Fine made magic
Earlier this year, private equity firm RMB Corvest ended a spectacularly successful (near 30% compound return), decade long partnership when Durbanite Kenton Fine's Servest was sold into a global competitor. The partnership began four years after Fine had taken his once JSE listed services private, and flourished through a succession…
How Allan Gray values stocks and why it likes Naspers, Glencore, Implats
JOHANNESBURG — Value investing is a refrain famously repeated by Warren Buffett. At its core, it simply involves buying securities that appear underpriced as per fundamental analysis. And in this interview, Allan Gray's chief investment officer, Andrew Lapping, explains how his firm has used value investing to identify Naspers, Glencore and Impala…
From the Editor's Desk: How Shaun Abrahams accidentally saved the rand
He's an unlikely hero is Shaun Abrahams, the now-disgraced former head of the National Prosecuting Authority. But Abrahams may inadvertently have done the country and the currency a world of good by getting sacked amidst the emerging markets currency crisis. The rand, which by all logic should have tanked in…
Jumping drones that take off, land using legs: Meet the SA engineer behind them
JOHANNESBURG — Inspired by birds of the order 'Passeriformes' (passerines), Matthew Whalley and his Johannesburg-based team have gone about developing innovative drone technology that can take off and land with the use of legs. Matthew's company, appropriately dubbed 'Passerine Aircraft Corporation' has even gone as far as attracting funding from…
Vodacom’s YeboYethu BEE scheme smashes it – six-bagger in ten years, with more to come
This special podcast is brought to you by RMB. In 2008 Vodacom SA attracted 85,000 new black shareholders in a public offer of shares via the widely publicised YeboYethu transaction. With 8,500 Vodacom staffers also opting into the scheme, this innovative, Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) transaction was one of the…
From tech startup star to champion GT race driver: Meet SA's David Perel
JOHANNESBURG — If you ever need any motivation to get you across the line with your personal goals in life, I suggest you listen to my interview with former Cape Town-based David Perel. What's fascinating about Perel, who now lives in London, is that he had a passion for racing…
From the Editor's Desk: As the rand plunges, is South Africa heading for a crisis?
The rand fell this week as South Africa got caught up in an emerging market sell-off driven by the collapse of the Turkish lira. It's a risk-off market, and currencies like the South African rand and Brazilian real have been caught in the gravity well. Even US equities have fallen…
MUST-LISTEN: Jack Ma inspires Johannesburg audience, speaks about journey with Alibaba
JOHANNESBURG — It's not every day you get to listen to the legendary Jack Ma speak and especially to a South African audience. Worth over $42bn, Ma is one of China's richest people thanks to his stellar tech company Alibaba. Starting with humble beginnings back in 1999, today Alibaba is…
Hard lessons from Venezuela: How an erosion of property rights accelerated the rot
JOHANNESBURG — Professor Sary Levy-Carciente had to travel a circuitous route from her home city Caracas, Venezuela to get to Johannesburg, South Africa this week. Because her country's national airline has so few direct routes these days, she had to first fly a series of connecting flights north to New…
Why SA's Green Mamba passport continues to lose its global bite
JOHANNESBURG — If you're one of the unlucky few (like myself) who don't have a second passport in South Africa, you've probably found yourself banging your head against visa requirements when travelling to places such as Europe. Apart from the costs, the sheer time wasted in obtaining visas for a…
Intelligent infrastructure: Why Futuregrowth invested in hi-tech SA firm Symion
JOHANNESBURG — Futuregrowth Asset Management has made a substantial investment, through its Development Equity Fund, into a very interesting local technology company called 'Symion'. Symion is a commercial and industrial technology group that focuses on 'intelligent infrastructure' and bringing smart connectivity to physical systems. Some of the sectors that Symion plays…