| Thursday 23 December 2021 Good morning Voornaam,
Today is the second-last edition of InceConnect for the year. We are so close to Christmas, yet there are still some very interesting stories in the market.
MAS real estate fund has agreed to sell its hotel property and adjacent square in Scotland. The company is disposing of its Western European properties and redeploying capital to Central and Eastern Europe. The price has been agreed as EUR 45.2 million and the net proceeds (after debt and costs) are expected to be around EUR 27 million. The net operating income of the property for the year ended June was EUR 2.12 million. This is a Category 2 transaction, so shareholders won't be asked to vote on the deal.
BHP has been well and truly beaten by Wyloo in the battle for Noront in Canada. Much respect goes to BHP for being willing to walk away from a deal that had simply become too expensive. Wyloo's eventual offer of CAD 1.10 per share was substantially higher than BHP's already-increased offer of CAD 0.75 per share. The Noront board had originally supported BHP in its bid and had no choice but to recommend the Wyloo offer as being superior. BHP had a right to match the Wyloo offer and elected not to do so.
Anglo American announced the value of rough diamond sales for De Beers' tenth sales cycle of the year. At a total sales value of USD 332 million, they were way down on both the ninth cycle (USD 438 million) and the tenth cycle last year (USD 452 million). The company brushed over this lower result, noting that rough diamond sales this year were higher than in 2019 before the pandemic and of course much higher than in 2020. Even in a pandemic, love has clearly been in the air.
Sanlam released what I thought was a significant announcement at 9am yesterday, yet it only closed 2 % higher. Sanlam and Allianz SE are "exploring strategic alternatives" in relation to their African businesses excluding South Africa. There's a chance of some kind of deal for Sanlam's extensive African interests, which may also have an impact on Santam's investments in the region.
Brait has confirmed that its newly-minted Exchangeable Bonds may be exchanged for ordinary shares at any stage from 31 January until the Exchange Deadline as defined in the prospectus.
Accelerate Property Fund shareholders should note that the circular for the disposal of the European property portfolio has been made available by the company.
A company that hasn't managed to send out a circular is Rebosis. The fund is selling a massive portfolio of properties worth R6.3 billion and has not managed to put together the pro forma financial information needed for the circular, as the annual results were onl y published on 2 December. The JSE has granted an extension to Rebosis to finalise the circular, which is now expected to be distributed to shareholders by the end of January.
There's only one feature story today as there was only one announcement that warrants a full article. Yet again, Ascendis Health has found itself in the news. As expected by many, the debt providers are not happy with the changes to the board and have delivered a notice that the debt must be settled immediately, with key milestones to be achieved in the next few weeks to avoid that worst case scenario from playing out in full. Read about it in more detail here.
Remember to listen to Episode 56 of Magic Markets, in which Mohammed Nalla and I talked about some of the them es we've identified in the process of researching the deep dives on global stocks that are part of our Magic Markets Premium offering. Episode 56 can be listened to for free at this link.
Have a great summer's day!
The Finance Ghost
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