The separate listing of the wholesale and retail operations of Tiger Wheels (TiWheel) should give insight into what plans diversified services group Bidvest has for the automotive industry.
In January last year Bidvest acquired a 17 percent stake in TiWheel for R239.9 million. It increased this to 20 percent last April by exercising an option to purchase a further 1.8 million shares for R45 million.
Bidvest had acquired McCarthy Motor Holdings (MMH), the vehicle retailing group, for R867 million in 2004. Last year it said it aimed to increase its exposure to the after-sales market in the automotive industry.
The group has declined to date to elaborate on its strategy for the automotive market.
It will therefore be worth watching to see what ultimately happens to Tiger Automotive (TiAuto). This will be the holding company of listed TiWheel's hived-off wheel and tyre retail and wholesale operations in South Africa and the UK. It lists in the speciality retailers sector today.
The listing follows TiWheel's unbundling of its local tyre wholesale, retail and international alloy wheel manufacturing operations, with TiWheel continuing as a focused global wheel manufacturing business.
TiAuto's holdings include Tiger Wheel & Tyre, which has 48 specialised retail after-market wheel and tyre stores in South Africa and neighbouring countries. Thirty-four are company owned; the balance are owner-operated and owner-financed franchised stores.
Could Bidvest have lost interest in TiWheel's manufacturing interests and be looking to put its retail interests into MMH, as has been speculated? If it is, it would be a good fit and there could be some interesting times for investors who want to go along for the ride.
One of the things that makes economic analysis so complex - and interesting - is that causes rarely have only one effect. And effects rarely have only one cause.
Discussing the relationship between commodity prices, the exchange rate and domestic prices in its Quarterly Bulletin, released last week, the Reserve Bank noted that changes in commodity prices affected the foreign exchange value of the rand, not only because of "changes in the supply of foreign currency flowing into the market", but more immediately because of expectations based on the spot prices of commodities.
Rand strength resulting from high commodity prices helps contain inflation as import prices fall.
But that's not the end of the story. Commodity prices tend to move together, which pushes up everyone's production costs and therefore producer prices. The knock-on effect of higher prices at the producer level then works through to consumer prices.
That's what makes monetary policy so important. If interest rates are high enough, people think twice before they borrow. This consumer resistance forces retailers and producers to absorb much of the impact of higher commodity prices.
The inflationary impetus in the economy this year has come from the oil price, which rose to nearly $79 a barrel in August. If the Reserve Bank had taken no action, consumers would have continued to buy what they felt they needed and producers would not have been forced to cut margins.
By raising interest rates, the bank has managed to largely contain the second-round effects of higher oil prices.
The problem, of course, is that causes don't have only one effect: higher interest rates don't just deter consumers; they discourage businesses from making capital investment.
That's what makes Tito Mboweni's job such a tough one.
Fortunately, the Quarterly Bulletin shows that rising interest rates have so far had little effect on capital formation, which continued at what the Reserve Bank calls a "blistering pace" in the third quarter.