There’s one word that defines the investment climate today, and that’s uncertainty. Emerging markets remain as volatile as ever – whether it’s the slide towards authoritarianism in Turkey, corruption scandals in Brazil, North Korea testing nuclear missiles or motions of no confidence in South Africa. If that wasn’t enough, there’s upheaval in the rich world,…
Alongside Venezuela, South Africa is one of the few countries that is not part of the longest phase of synchronised global growth we have seen for a good while. Jeremy Gardiner, a Director of Asset Management at Investec, told Dynasty clients at an exclusive presentation that this reflects that many of South Africa’s problems are domestic…
Investors should expect uncertainty to prevail in South Africa beyond the parliamentary vote of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma taking place today and the ANC elective conference in December this year, according to Trevor Manuel, South Africa’s former Minister of Finance.
The newly introduced section 7C of the Income Tax Act (“the Act”) applies to any loan, credit or advance granted directly or indirectly to a trust by, inter alia, any natural person, who is a connected person to the trust, where the loan, credit or advance is not interest-bearing or where it bears interest at…
With all the talk of radical economic transformation in the air, wealthy and middle-class South Africans should almost certainly expect the taxes they pay to rise over the next few years. This will build on the trend of the previous two Budget Speeches, which offered little in the way of tax relief for anyone but…
More than a month has passed since President Jacob Zuma removed Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan, and several other ministers and deputy ministers from their posts in a dramatic midnight cabinet reshuffle. Yet the rand has remained relatively resilient following this unsettling political event—trading today at stronger levels than it was at the beginning of the…
As you will almost certainly be aware by now, Jacob Zuma finally showed his hand last night with the cabinet reshuffle, including the firing of Pravin Gordhan and Mcebisi Jonas. There is no window-dressing in terms of this move – it is a dire and blatant action to remove the barriers that the patronage faction…
We are currently facing a very challenging time as investors, where we are experiencing low returns and an adverse set of circumstances. We have referred to this kind of environment as “Slow Poison”, while a fund manager of ours recently related to it as being, “sand-papered to death”. When the risk that investors take for…
‘There is a Chinese curse which says “May he live in interesting times.” Like it or not we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history.’ – Robert F. Kennedy in his Day of Affirmation Address in Cape Town, South Africa,…
