Simon’s weekly wrap: Looking for quality

As we wind down the year, I spoke with David Shapiro from Sasfin on the importance of quality management in any company you’re invested into. It takes time for them to prove themselves, but when they do – backing top management is an important part of any investment strategy. Great companies with great management make for great returns.

We’ve seen a number of good turnaround stories on the JSE lately (Invicta and Omnia are certainly two we’ve been tracking). I spoke with Keith McLachlan about identifying a turnaround before it happens, and he had a number of excellent points to consider.

Third quarter GDP for South Africa came in at -1.5%. This was in part ascribed to the KZN riots in July, but I spoke with Adrian Saville of Genera Capital and he believes that it was more than just the violence. South Africa needs urgent reforms, and he lists a few easy ‘free lunches’ that politicians can adopt to help get growth and unemployment back on track.

Last weekend saw cryptocurrencies collapse, as Bitcoin lost some 20% in a matter of hours. I spoke with Revix founder Sean Sanders about the collapse. He points out that with huge amounts of leverage in the system crypto will see extreme volatility, but that the weekend collapse didn’t see much panic. This is a good sign and there has been a partial recovery already.

Also this week:

Tharisa CEO Phoevos Pouroulis says the 50% extension to its open-pit mine’s life gives it another 20 years at no additional capital cost, allowing the miner to transition to underground mining in a phased approach.