eBusiness Weekly
Mamvura’s Market Minute
Nampak’s quarterly update at its AGM once again gives us an indication that Command Agriculture liquidity abounds. Up 16 percent on the quarter (versus Delta’s 24 percent), it is not immediately apparent how much of it came from higher prices and how much from volumes.
As indicated with the Delta results, the one thing that the payments backlog has created is more demand for local product, but Delta also said it was not going to take price increases from suppliers.
We should therefore assume that any volume growth would be at the old price on consignment stock from Nampak SA.
Nampak’s interims are not that far off, but this is one company that has never held a briefing at half year and this AGM is a rare occasion to get information from management.
Mamvura would like to take credit for having forced companies during the hyperinflation to provide these updates. In the early years of quizzing the top table at AGMs, ill-formed chairmen often used to claim that this was “not the forum” for shareholders to get a company update.
Really? When prices were moving at the rate they were back then it certainly was. Oddly Nampak’s year on year share gain (537 percent) is reminiscent of those days.
It would be useful if companies were to follow the Delta route. No doubt SEC will come out with some dictate in the years to come that quarterly updates are a requirement of being listed.
How many companies have the foresight to send this report to the ZSE for public dispersal before this time comes? You only need three to four figures and can offer percentages as well as a few lines explaining the reason for the gain/loss — it should take a CFO no more than a few minutes after looking at the spreadsheet for the quarter.
Let’s see if any company takes up Mamvura’s challenge.
