It certainly does not take much to ignite the share price of Namibian investment company Trustco, which has operations that span insurance, banking, private education, diamond mining and real estate.
On November 6, Trustco’s shares had drifted down to 620c with the market showing apparent concern that CEO, founder and major shareholder Quinton van Rooyen was about to provide a much-needed new loan structure for the company.
The highly illiquid share, held mostly by Van Rooyen and entities associated with US-based investor Sean Riskowitz, had since mid-September shown ominous signs of brittleness. In recent weeks, the share price started showing signs of a steady recovery.
On Monday, however, Trustco’s shares spiked more than 10% in light volumes on the seemingly mundane news that the group’s educational division’s Vocational Training Centre received a compliance certificate from the Namibian ministry of labour on November 18.
On Wednesday, Trustco also provided an update of its diamond mining activities, most notably that its Meya operation exported another 2,572 carats from Sierra Leone to Antwerp.
Like the private education news, the progress report for the diamond operations is not exactly earth-shattering. In truth, the volatility in Trustco’s share price might well only be properly addressed when the group issues its interim results to end-September. This should be in the next fortnight.
All eyes will be on the all-important operational cash flows and just how much profit is banked on the revaluation of Trustco’s property assets.
These are very interesting days for the Namibian investment company.
The bellicose tone of mineral resources minister Gwede Mantashe tearing into Gold Fields’ management about the month-long strike at the South Deep mine, is yet another instance in which the minister raises eyebrows.
To make public his views on the management acting in “bad faith” in dealing with the 1,500 job cuts at the perennially unprofitable South Deep mine is one thing, but making a serious allegation like that is quite another.
In a situation featuring high levels of violence and intimidation, the minister’s comments are inflammatory and give the strikers the sense they have a powerful ally against executives trying to save a failing mine. For an industry regulator to be seen taking sides is far from ideal.
Anyone with an interest in SA’s mining industry would think that Mantashe, the former general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), is siding with the union, which has called a strike at South Deep to protest against the job cuts.
Another thought arises from the minister’s exhortation at the Joburg Mining Indaba that there was to be no more negativity against each other in public. Thinking about those comments again, he did sound like he was reprimanding mining executives for speaking about their difficulties encountered with Mantashe’s department in securing licences, corruption and years of regulatory uncertainty.
It’s no good for one party to be as aggressive as Mantashe in this week’s accusations against Gold Fields. He could have saved that for those closed-door sessions that he said at the indaba he favoured, where discussions could be as full and as robust as necessary without tainting investor perceptions about SA.
Whoever is advising Mantashe would do well to heed their principal’s own advice to the industry. If it’s Mantashe himself, well, practising what he preaches would be helpful.
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