Going by soon-to-be-listed Peermont Global's strong shareholder base and ambitious expansion plans, this could be a share to watch in future.
Peermont, formerly Global Resorts, is involved in the gaming and hotel business and is looking at making its appearance on the JSE Securities Exchange by September 9.
After the listing the shareholder base will comprise Allan Gray and RMB Asset Management, each holding 17.2 percent; Coronation Asset Management, with 12.5 percent; and Grant Thornton Capital, with 1.6 percent, all on behalf of clients; as well as Sanlam, with 26 percent; Aquila Growth shareholders, with 11.7 percent; Peermont management, with 7.5 percent; and Standard Bank, with 6.3 percent.
At present, the Aquila stake in Peermont is being distributed to shareholders as a dividend in specie, in accordance with the winding up of Aquila's operations.
Apart from the well-known casino hotels already in the group - including Caesars in Gauteng, Graceland in Secunda and 60 percent of the Grand Palm Resort in Botswana - the company has set itself a solid expansion strategy.
Chief executive Ernie Joubert says the first priority is to add value to the existing operations through extensions and new hotels. Peermont is also looking at two new hotel developments, and the final work is being done on a deal for the hotel on the Sanlammeer golf estate in KwaZulu-Natal.
There is talk of a hotel development on another golf estate, rumoured to be the Ernie Els-designed Oubaai on the coast just outside George.
The foray into the budget-hotel market will kick off with its first Metcourt Inn at the Grand Palm Resort in Botswana. The strategy is to become a multifaceted hotel group.
Peermont is already looking at possibilities in the rest of Africa, including Nigeria, Mozambique, Malawi and Mauritius. Outside Africa Joubert has identified growth hot spots in Dubai, China, the US and the UK.
Investors are sure to welcome Peermont on the bourse. DDV
EXXOTEQ There is still no word on the fate of this beleaguered oil exploration company, which early this month reported dire results for the year to February after running into cash flow problems after the death of chairman Prem Sawney in a motor accident.
The results reflected a R339.5 million loss after the value of its main assets, the Algoa Basin oilfield and a technology agreement with Exxoteq International, was written down to zero, and following a R12.17 million operating loss. The company raised R11.3 million through its listing late last year.
So bad was the impact on cash flow that auditing firm Fisher Hoffman PKF noted in the results that "in our opinion Exxoteq is trading without reasonable expectation of being able to meet its liabilities".
Exxoteq listed at R5 a share but the price rapidly plunged to a low of only 5c by July 2 this year.
Notwithstanding the hardship such a decline must have caused many of its individual shareholders - institutions would never have bought into a listing that raised only R11 million - the price seems to have staged a slight rebound in the past three weeks. Yesterday it was up 8.33 percent to 13c.
Exxoteq's annual meeting is set for the end of August. It's likely that if shareholders don't have more certainty about the future of their company by then, they will be able to question directors about it at the meeting - assuming Exxoteq is still operational at that point. EW
Ispat Iscor
This steel maker's three-year wage deal with the National Union of Metalworkers of SA and the United Association of SA represents a coup for management, in that it now has some certainly about annual wage expectations.
But a deal with mainly white union Solidarity still needs to be sorted out.
The three-year wage deal provides for a guaranteed CPIX inflation rate increase for three years, within certain parameters that fall only slightly outside the Reserve Bank's inflation targets. Marginal increases on top of that may be allocated according to performance and other variable factors.
The problem that Solidarity's members have relates to plans by Iscor to equalise regional salary disparities, and a scheme to bring the salary scales of its higher-paid employees back within the company guidelines with an annual once-off payment.
This, some believe, may have split Solidarity members, in that Iscor's regional employees like the idea of bringing all salaries in line, while the better-paid employees are unhappy with the once-off payment plan for their increases.
Solidarity has made some noises about potential strikes. However, with the split looming in its own ranks, such action seems unlikely at this stage.
Of course, unions are also still fuming over the 1 000 job cuts planned this year through natural attrition and voluntary retrenchments. The job cuts do seem incomprehensible given the exceptionally high world steel prices.
However, the steel market is a cyclical business.
So job cuts at this stage indicate that Iscor believes the global price cycle has peaked, or has reached close to its peak. It indicates that the company is leaning down for lower prices.
Could this indicate the end of the roller-coaster ride in which Iscor's share price rose from R15.50 on July 29 last year to R41 on April 6?
Yesterday the price was 6c lower at R37.60. EW
Rands & Tourists
The stronger currency obviously means foreign tourists will spend less this summer than they did when exchange rates made everything unbelievably cheap for them.
But the signs are that they will be coming. They have kept arriving at Cape Town International Airport in larger numbers than in any previous winter.
The latest figures, for June, show that arrivals on international flights were 16.6 percent higher than in the same month last year.
So the R1 billion that Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) is spending over 10 years on improving and enlarging the airport may be justified.
The tourism statistics also strengthen Acsa's case for the high charges it makes, despite objections from airlines that accuse it of abusing its monopoly position. It claims its high profit is needed for capital improvements to the state-owned airports. AD