African Rainbow Capital Investments (ARC) has reported an 11.3% increase in its intrinsic portfolio value, to R13 659 million
– Co-CEO Johan van Zyl says Rain’s contentious merger offer for Telkom is still in the works
African Rainbow Capital Investments (ARC) has reported an 11.3% increase in its intrinsic portfolio value, to R13 659 million, for the year to end-June.
The investment group (controlled by billionaire Patrice Motsepe) says the growth is the result of good financial performances by some of the businesses it’s invested in despite “constrained” trading conditions.
These include data-only network Rain, TymeBank in South Africa and Tyme Global in Singapore.
ARC says an additional R56 million was invested in Rain during the year under review, bringing the value of the ARC Fund’s interest to R3.6 billion.
An additional R303 million went into TymeBank and Tyme Global.
The ARC Fund now has an effective interest of 25% in TymeBank, in the form of 49.9% of the 50.1% interest held by ARC FSH.
TymeBank now counts 5 million customers, 36 months after launch.
Bruce Whitfield interviews ARC Co-CEO Johan van Zyl and asks about any frustration around the difference between the value that management puts on the companies and the value the market does.
You know, we work quite hard; we’re fairly prudent… Our net asset value is around R10 a share or slightly above, and yet the market only gives us credit for around half or slightly more than half of that, so it’s always an issue that we’re trying to close that discount.
Johan van Zyl, Co-CEO – African Rainbow Capital
Van Zyl says this one of the reasons why a dividend will have to wait “for a while”.
ARC is looking very hard at various contributing factors including its cost structure and also profit participation, he says.
We do have a tail of small businesses and people struggle to understand, which creates an inherent cost… but overall. we’re pretty chuffed with what’s been achieved.
Johan van Zyl, Co-CEO – African Rainbow Capital
Van Zyl says ARC is still busy debating how to structure its contentious merger offer for Telkom, but this should be ready in the next couple of weeks.
