Dimension Data (Didata) showed something of a turnaround yesterday but the information technology group is not quite out of the woods.
China and Asia need to reach a breakeven point next year, revenues need to be converted into real returns, Internet Solutions in South Africa needs to grab market share in the voice arena fast, the UK's overall performance could be better, the company needs to invest wisely to grow and the share price could be better, just to name a few.
The company could also get a better return on its cash balances but unfortunately this would be at South Africa's expense. Didata said yesterday it would like to centralise its cash holdings but Asia and South Africa were subject to exchange controls.
With $90 million sitting in banks in this country, up to R540 million could be pulled out of the economy if the cash were repatriated to London, Didata's domicile.
There have been many concerns about how much money would flow out if exchange controls were lifted and this would be just one small indication that quite a bit of cash may disappear.
On a different note, new chief executive Brett Dawson appears to be doing wonders after three to four years on a downward spiral. One commentator said Dawson had been a safer pair of hands and a stabilising influence.
If he can look after margins and push the company into true profitability in the next year, he'll be a hero and maybe the lacklustre share will follow suit. That would be a great relief to many die-hard Didata supporters who are still doggedly hanging on
to their shares.
On the subject of Didata SA chairman Andile Ngcaba's potential conflict of interest, it means very little for Didata to ensure that Ngcaba will not sit on the Telkom board. Ngcaba would still have influence at Telkom through the Elephant Consortium and be privy to much information, so this is one Chinese wall argument that just doesn't hold muster. RB
Much has been made of the demise of the local clothing and textile manufacturing industry, especially the number of jobs that have been lost. A lot of the blame has fallen on the huge influx of Chinese imports and unions have targeted local clothing retailers with the intention of getting a commitment on local content.
But value retailer Mr Price says the problem stretches further than the Chinese imports. It says retailers and manufacturers have to communicate better.
For example, Mr Price says it has placed orders of millions of rands with fabric and textile manufacturer David Whitehead, but it has only recently heard that the manufacturer is on the brink of closing its doors.
With better communication, the retailer says, perhaps more could have been done in salvaging the situation. Mr Price also says it is looking at launching the first of three new concepts by next October, but has remained mum on what they may be, except to say that two will be apparel-related while the third will be a new product range.
Going by the success of Mr Price Home, launched just a few years ago, the new ventures should also deliver. One of the first to pounce on the home wares craze a few years back, Mr Price has already grown the chain to 119 stores with a contribution of close to 20 percent to group revenue. DdV
is lekker. That could be one interpretation of the annual financial results of this listed international brand management company.
Barloworld's local businesses all performed exceptionally well, with its southern African operations increasing their contribution to operating profits to 75 percent in the year to September from 69 percent in the previous year.
Obviously, with the exception of any export business, Barloworld's southern African operations benefited from the strength of the rand while hurting the performance in rand terms of its offshore operations in the translation of foreign currency earnings into rand.
It is probably inappropriate to be too critical about the performance of Barloworld's foreign businesses due to the fact that its overall financial performance was so good.
However, the fact remains that with the exception of the equipment division, which houses its Caterpillar business, the performance of Barloworld's offshore businesses was generally rather disappointing - and has been for some time - despite the huge investments made in them.
An example of this was the motor business, which did well in southern Africa. By growing unit sales by 19 percent profitability increased, while the Australian dealerships had a disappointing year with unit sales decreasing by 3 percent as its main brands lost market share to competitors.
It was a similar story with the coatings division, which experienced a record year. The operating margin increased to 10 percent and profit grew by 51 percent, but the Australian business took some of the shine off the performance.
The same could be said for the group's scientific division.
After the sharp depreciation of the rand at the end of 2001 and subsequent economic fallout, who would ever have thought that the local economy would have been the place to be. However, the comments of Barloworld chief executive Tony Phillips in this regard are worth noting.
Phillips said that, of Barloworld's total net assets of about R28 billion, probably only about 10 percent were "suffering in some way". RC
Not so long ago, the Hospital Association of SA issued a press release defending the three private hospital groups - namely Network Healthcare (Netcare), Afrox Healthcare (Ahealth) and Medi-Clinic - against media reports of "super-profits".
Netcare's revenue for the year to September came in at R6.8 billion, while Ahealth pulled in a revenue of R4.9 billion for same period and Medi-Clinic produced a turnover figure of R2 billion for the six months to September.
The private hospital industry may think nothing of these figures, and indeed, justifies them to the man on the street by talking about expenditure and job creation.
One cannot deny South Africa has one of the world's best private healthcare systems, recently rated fourth according to a Monitor Group global study commissioned by Discovery Health, even if it is out of reach of most. NM