Investors fed up as Discovery chews up the cash
The market is taking an increasingly dim view of Discovery’s capital-hungry businesses, especially its Ping An venture in China
It’s not every day that a company’s share price slumps 10% after it announces a 70% jump in annual profit. But Discovery investors seem fed up with not receiving dividends for a second year in a row — even as competitors such as Standard Bank, Absa, Nedbank, Old Mutual and Sanlam dish out cash to shareholders as they unwind their provisions for the pandemic.
But Discovery, taking a page from Naspers’s playbook, is putting more cash aside to invest in new business ventures, notably Chinese health insurer Ping An — not to mention the capital demands from its growing bank and short-term insurance businesses...
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