Among the most respected voices in SA financial media. Trying to reduce the gap between retail and institutional insights. Nothing here is advice.
Cape Town, South Africa
Joined March 2020
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- Following1.3K
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FML.
BREAKING: Microsoft $MSFT falls 3% in just 30 minutes after Anthropic launches Claude Sheets, Claude Whiteboards and Claude Data.
Excel has owned the spreadsheet market for over 40 years. Now an AI company is coming straight for it.
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What's inside?
Well, rather a lot...
00:00 Intro
02:04 Motus as a vertically integrated group
03:52 The import business: bringing five brands into Southern Africa
05:26 The retail business: selling 1 in 5 vehicles in South Africa
07:39 Mobility Solutions: value-added services and long-term revenue streams
09:07 The pre-owned business: Motus is number 2 in South Africa
09:37 Car rental: Europcar and Tempest and Auto Pedigree
10:46 Workshop activities
11:20 Aftermarket parts extend the customer relationship
15:00 New vehicle sale margins and the broader financial profile of the group
20:27 A few elements of the model that investors miss
21:48 Aftermarket parts as a growth vector
23:30 The Chinese and Indian disruption – or opportunity?
27:40 Avoiding the false start by some Chinese brands
29:08 How Motus is responding to the Chinese opportunity
31:31 Workshop technicians for the Chinese brands
32:52 Margins in the Chinese era
34:34 Recent comments at the AGM
35:25 Ockert’s views on Chinese market share
36:18 Impact on the pre-owned space and the importance of stock turn
38:19 Is Motus a cyclical play, or is there enough of a structural underpin?
39:52 Digging into the financial risk matrix and financial KPIs
44:05 Closing thoughts: Ockert on the investment case
45:32 Closing thoughts: Brenda on the medium-term outlook
46:55 Outro
Ready?
Here it is:
youtube.com/watch?v=-wvB9MEU…
🤝 Paid partnership
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Uber with the hard truths on agentic commerce adoption:
"Yes. So I think just to put numbers to it, we had our -- one of our largest weeks last week because it was Halloween.
So we did just around 320 million trips on Uber and Uber Eats.
The volumes coming from AI agents for Uber Eats were around 500 orders total.
And for our rides business, it was a grand total of 4 trips that we fulfilled from agents.
So it's very, very early and very limited traction that we've seen so far."
$UBER
You enjoy doing your own research?
Then you'll REALLY love this.
Hot off the press: a 48-minute deep dive into Motus with the CEO and CFO.
My thanks to the company for stepping up to support the work done on the Ghost Mail platform.
Get it here:
ghostmail.co.za/ghost-storie…
🤝 Paid partnership
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I had to take the plunge and get going on Instagram.
It would be lovely to have more than 12 followers right now, so please do add the purple ghost to your feed if you're an Instagram person.
Then you can watch me do Instagram badly in real time!
instagram.com/thefinanceghos…
Raubex is like a box of chocolates.
And one of them doesn't taste particularly good...
Get the details here:
ghostmail.co.za/best-of-ghos…
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The level of denial in the diamond industry is just incredible.
From Raubex:
"Namdeb remains B&E International’s flagship contract and delivered an exceptional performance throughout the period. Although global diamond prices remained under pressure, partly due to the growing popularity of lab-grown alternatives, demand for Namdeb’s natural diamonds remained resilient, supported by the consistently high quality of its product offering."
Lol.
Partly, you say?
Resilient?
Left-field bull case for Meta $META:
China would never send a honeypot to target Zuck.
By the time it's over, he would know more about China than they would learn about him!
Don't mess with the GOAT of personal info...
There's a shake-up in the local corporate finance space.
Standard Bank and Java Capital are building an integrated platform. But what does that practically mean for clients?
Find out in this discussion:
youtube.com/watch?v=mymuybV1…
🤝 Paid partnership
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Keen to learn more about balanced funds and the importance of the strategic asset allocation decision?
Nico Katzke of @SATRIX_SA has got you covered.
ghostmail.co.za/ghost-storie…
🤝 Paid partnership
Get the latest on this important retail trio:
ghostmail.co.za/best-of-ghos…
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Good morning!
Get the latest on Shoprite, Truworths and The Foschini Group:
ghostmail.co.za/best-of-ghos…
Ahead of tomorrow morning's mailer, here's a Best of Bites featuring two from Friday (Shoprite and The Foschini Group) along with Truworths from earlier in the week.
ghostmail.co.za/best-of-ghos…
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Do loose ends irritate you?
Well, you aren't alone.
Your Sunday read just went live, with Dominique Olivier explaining the concept of Chekhov's Gun:
ghostmail.co.za/chekhovs-gun…
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My dad built model trains with me. Most British hobby ever!
Taught me loads about planning, woodwork, electrics and creativity.
And now I'm passing it down a generation...
Not many analogue hobbies left in this world, sadly. But they are wonderful and worth preserving.
