EDITOR’S LUNCHBOX: Net1 called ‘arrogant’ about social grants by Gordhan

Stories of Note

Bytes from the digital world

"Twelve business days [are] required prior to payment commencing on April 1 2017. This effectively means that all negotiations and contract finalisation need to be completed by no later than March 15 2017, failing which CPS will not be in position to commence payment on April 1 2017," Net1 CEO Serge Belamant informed government — a response Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan deemed "arrogant".

MICROMega chairman Dave King — who got into hot water with the South African Revenue Services in 2000 for claiming he only earned R60,000 in a year he bought an Irma Stern painting for R1.7m, resulting in the state selling his wine farm Quoin Rock, which spawned a follow-up scandal on how the auction industry operates — is back in the news regarding his share of Scottish football team Rangers.

In My Opinion

Matters of debate

The travails at state-owned petroleum firm PetroSA demonstrate in graphic form why it’s so important to separate state functions from risk-based enterprises.

Sygnia Asset Management CEO Magda Wierzycka scrutinises the terms and conditions in the default bank account that welfare recipients get from Net1’s partner Grindrod Bank, and her conclusions are worrying.

Finding Alpha

The long and the short of the markets

From York, UK to Montreal, and Osaka to Seattle, it’s a pretty good time to be looking for a job as a member of the labour force in many developed countries. But while unemployment is falling almost everywhere, but wages aren’t rising much anywhere.

Thanks to defaulting on its debt in January, Cell C posted its first full-year profit since its launch in 2001 after re-capitalising the business via Blue Label, Net1 and existing shareholders.

The lighter side of the web

Independent Media is suing Times Media Group for R300m — in addition to the R500m damages its subsidiary African News Agency demanded last Thursday.

In far as the article on the front page of Independent Media’s Business Report on Wednesday is comprehensible, reasons its competitor owes it R800m in damages include Independent Media’s owner, Sekunjalo, spending R200m over four years in "technological and digital advancements, as well as skills training and development for journalists as part of its strategy to migrate the Independent Media brand from a largely print media [group] to a multi-platform media group".

Perhaps, instead, this migrated brand should sue whoever it paid to do its training, judging from the spelling and grammar in the e-mailed questions its reporters send out?

Very Visual

Graph of the day

Investec’s share price has still not recovered to its pre-Brexit level on the JSE, although it is up 5.79% year-to-date.