JSE is fertile ground for short sellers
Several major listed companies have up to 5% of their shares out on loan
Up to 1.42%, or R126.7bn, of the JSE’s Top 40 shares are in the hands of short sellers, showing that the market was a fertile ground for risky bets long before it became fashionable for hedge funds to release negative reports about a company and further depress its shares. Mediclinic International, Anglo American, Shoprite and Woolworths had between 1% and 5% of their shares out on loan to short sellers on Monday afternoon, with Anglo and Mediclinic suffering the same fate in the UK, where nine funds are shorting the companies. Short selling has recently come under the spotlight after US-based Viceroy Research wrote a damning report shortly after retailer Steinhoff International admitted to accounting irregularities, without specifying them. Viceroy’s report touched on some of these irregularities. Two weeks ago, 36ONE Asset Management owned up as the author of an anonymous report criticising the Resilient group of companies, which include the Fortress Income Fund, Hammerson and Nep...
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