ROB ROSE: Time for JSE to take stock
The clash at the bourse’s AGM flagged the fact that while the exchange can’t reject listings for subjective reasons, its rules may need an overhaul
It was pretty clear, before the JSE’s AGM kicked off last week at the exchange’s headquarters on Maude Street in Sandton, that Sygnia CEO Magda Wierzycka was spoiling for a fight. It ended up as a notable confrontation, not least of all because all the protagonists were women — Wierzycka squaring off against JSE CEO Nicky Newton-King and JSE chair Nku Nyembezi-Heita. Wierzycka had prepared two pages of detailed questions, which largely painted Africa’s biggest stock exchange as a whimsical and bumbling oaf, applying one set of rules one minute, another the next. Those questions were exactly what the average man on the street would want to ask Newton-King. For example, how did the JSE not pick up problems with Steinhoff before it listed in Frankfurt in 2015? How did it not see that the listing price of the Gupta-owned Oakbay Resources had been manipulated in 2014? And why was it willing to list two insolvent companies, Sagarmatha and Ayo, recently? "There are weaknesses in the manner...
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