Oh ship!

Good Morning Voornaam,

Did you miss yesterday's webinar with TreasuryONE? The insights into the rand are sobering but important. The good news is that the recording is now available. You can find it on the TreasuryONE YouTube channel at this link>>>

Speaking of webinars, remember to register for Calgro M3's appearance on Unlock the Stock next week Thursday at 12pm. Brought to you by A2X, attendance is free but you must register here>>>

And if I can bug you for just a couple of minutes of your time this morning, you can add your voice to an all-important survey that helps us make Ghost Mail even better. The questions relate mainly to the type of content you enjoy and what you invest in. Please, fill out the survey here>>>

There's nothing more cyclical than shipping

During the pandemic, shipping companies made an absolute fortune. Rates were through the roof and value literally shifted from producers of products to the companies that move them around instead. Those were heady days, driving Grindrod Shipping to around R470 per share at the peak. Today, it trades at R228 per share and the latest quarter reflects an overall loss!

It's all about the shipping rates, which in this case have more than halved over the past 12 months. Supply chains have normalised in a post-pandemic world and now the shipping companies are suffering from companies being overstocked in this market and the impact this has on demand. Inflationary pressures on shipping costs also don't help.

We also saw Afrimat's numbers heading the wrong way, despite the diversified nature of the business and management's track record. There isn't much that any management team can do about the slowdown in South Africa! That slowdown affects businesses differently of course, with Sanlam sounding upbeat after a quarterly update. That's just as well, because Purple Group is using Sanlam (its partner in EasyEquities) to also underwrite the rights offer at Purple level.

To make things even more interesting, we saw a Tale of Two Investecs: the Investec banking group is flying at th e moment and Investec Property Fund isn't doing very well.

With updates also coming in from Coronation, Datatec and Netcare, it was a fascinating day of news.

Get the latest on all these companies with a single click by reading Ghost Bites here>>>

Other stuff to keep you out of trouble today

There's no shortage of interesting content in Ghost Mail today. Here's what you should be looking at:

It's Friday - and that means DealMakers

After the M&A statistics for the local market looked incredibly downtrodden in the first quarter, the team at RMB wrote a piece on the trends that they believe will drive M&A for the rest of the year. With views on specific sectors as well, this is a worthwhile read.

Of course, there are also the usual summaries on local M&A this week, local corporate finance activity and deals in Africa.

Short and sharp: news on the rand

The update from TreasuryONE this morning is short and sharp. Here's the summary: the rand still sucks. It seems to have found a new base above R19.40 and sentiment towards the currency is at rock bottom. Russia and Eskom don't help matters and it's not obvious how sentiment will improve in the short term.

As mentioned further up, the recording of yesterday's webinar is a fantastic way to truly understand what is driving the rand.

Have a great weekend!

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