Would you want to manage your own RA?

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

You're listening to the MoneywebNOW podcast series with Simon Brown. Live streamed every weekday at 6:30 a.m. It's Thursday, 8th October.

Simon Brown (0:15)

We've got Atlanta, US. GDP now dotted due this afternoon. Expected 3.7%.

I'm Simon Brown coming at you live and loud from the Moneyweb Global Headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa. On the show today, Alyssa Viljoen, MD, Merchant West Investments. A tough trading update from AFRIMAT. Very tough. And Premier Group running into trouble with the Competition Commission. This just looks messy and I don't know how it resolves. We're going to chat with Kyle Wales from Prospr Invest. New retirement saving product, offering the ability to self-manage your RA. And then we're going to chat with Nedbank on their latest giving report. Rich South Africans are giving almost 6 billion rand in 2025

This podcast is brought to you by StandLib Asset Management. Invest in more global opportunities through their partnership with JPMorgan Asset Management. Winning headlines, Moneyweb, government cracks down on spam calls. Here's how to opt out. Registry will be rolled out in two phases. Market is given until April 2027 to cleanse their database. Business day, South Africa to add 9,600 megawatts in gas power and battery energy storage. Morning markets, US is red, S&P and Nasdaq both down 0.2 of a percent. The East is red, Sydney a few points, 0.04 percent lower. Tokyo off a percent, Hong Kong 0.6 percent down and Tencent down a full percent. Commodities mostly red, gold futures 4,156.

Brent, the only green at $102.38, Platinum 1,701, Palladium 1,147. The round is 1665, Bitcoin 82,800 and top 40 opening call, looking for a green open 106 points or 0.1 percent higher.

SPEAKER_1 (2:12)

MoneywebNOW, on the money, also available on podcast.

Simon Brown (2:17)

Telling now with Alyssa Fure and MD, Merchant West Investments. Alyssa, I appreciate the early morning time. The AFRIMAT trading update, I was expecting a bit of a tough update. I was wondering how the anthracite would be doing. I know they got some relief from NUSA, but a bit late in the time, I was wondering about cement. Turns out the problems were massive and the software and related to the Iranian war.

They are going to report a loss for the period.

Alyssa Viljoen (2:43)

Morning, Simon. Yeah. So it was a really tough one for them. They actually said that this was one of the most challenging trading conditions since listing in 2006 So really tough environment for them. But like you said, the iron ore prices have been quite depressed for the year. And what's actually happening is you selling iron ore in dollars and your round is now actually meaning less when you export that. So that's the one thing. But then the other area is your shipping costs. Your shipping costs actually increased by 50% for Aframat because of disruptions related to the Iran conflict. Yeah. So that resulted in the revenue per ton falling about 16%.

So a lot of really negative economics coming through, volumes down 36%.

And it's due to the shipping costs actually increasing so significantly. They are saying the EPS is expected to fall between 95% to 100%. So really not looking rosy. But I think the one positive is that the construction material business is performing really well. That was the previous Lafarge quarry operations. So if there's a bit of light in the tunnel, I would say this is it.

Simon Brown (4:07)

By taking the numbers, and we need to see the full results they do 22nd of the month, my sense is that the old story, what management can manage, they manage. There's a lot just that's completely beyond their control. To your point, I mean, shipping costs up 50%, that's completely nothing they can do.

Alyssa Viljoen (4:23)

Yeah, exactly. It's uncontrollable. And there's so many different areas where they actually can't control it. Iron ore price, shipping costs, their margins, these are things that are not in their control.

Simon Brown (4:36)

Yeah, yeah. So let's go to Premier Group. I note that they have not issued a sense announcement, but the Competition Commission, which had approved their merger with RFG, previously called Rhodes Food Group. But part of the conditions were no job losses. Premier, of course, wants to close down the Turbach factory.

And now suddenly Competition Commission is saying, hang on, we want to revisit, we want to scrap the merger. We don't know how this is going to play out, except we do know it's going to be messy.

Alyssa Viljoen (5:05)

Yeah, 100%. You know, the first thing to say is this isn't about a factory closing. This is companies close factories all the time. This is actually about disclosure. And the Competition Commission is challenging the integrity of the process that took place when Premier was buying Rhodes Food Group.