It will be interesting to see which marginal gold mining assets Harmony Gold decides to sell and who buys them.
Harmony first proposed selling off its marginal gold mines in early February. Chief executive Bernard Swanepoel wrote that month in the company's December quarter report that as a result of the "strategy of reducing our exposure to some of our existing lower quality, higher cost or shorter life assets, we will complete the transformation of Harmony into a world-class gold company".
Harmony started life by buying the marginal gold mines that the gold majors no longer wanted.
Yesterday it announced that it would create a unit to manage the sale of its marginal gold mines and mines that have been planned on care and maintenance. The unit will be headed by RBC Capital Markets analyst Georges Lequime.
The likely buyers of Harmony's marginal mines are Simmer and Jack Mines, as well as Aflease Gold.
Both companies have been buyers of such mines before.
A company like Pamodzi Gold could also lap up Harmony's marginal assets. Pamodzi Gold is aiming to increase its annual gold output to 400 000 ounces a year through acquisitions.
It seems as if virtually every retailer of fast-moving consumer goods suddenly wants to add drug dispensaries to its stores.
There was a time when New Clicks' venture into this area was derided by analysts and fund managers, who argued that it was difficult to put this low-margin business into small stores.
They pointed out that the bigger stores of the high-volume, low-margin Dis-Chem pharmacies stood a much better chance of success in the light of the government's decision to cap the margins on drug retail prices.
Since then, small independent pharmacies have won a victory, forcing the government to agree to slightly higher margins - but there is still no final resolution to the conflict, as some pharmacies say the margins they will now be able to charge are still too low.
Woolworths said recently it would pilot a couple of dispensaries in stores, following similar, though more aggressive decisions by both Shoprite and Pick 'n Pay.
While independent pharmacies have been closing down, Shoprite chief executive Whitey Basson said he expected the major retailers to start dominating this sector, which was once the preserve of mom-and-pop neighbourhood dispensaries.
Initially, the Clicks pharmacy business did perform poorly, but of late the Clicks chain has improved on its profitability.
Part of the reason for adding dispensaries to food and toiletries retail mix is simply to pull customers through the door, on the assumption that they will buy something else while they are getting their prescriptions filled.
Then the trend begins to follow a sort of domino effect: no major retailer wants to lose possible sales to a rival because customers have started going there for their drugs - and, more importantly, whatever else they might buy.
The success of Woolworths' pilot dispensary may well depend on to what extent the government finally caps drug margins.
Low margins might not suit Woolworths all that well, and may leave the likes of Dis-Chem smiling.
But then, of course, nobody, apart from Woolworths, believed the middle classes would be willing to pay more for the convenience of neighbourhood food stores with late closing hours.
South Africa's private banks should brace up as Barclays starts to find its way back into the retail banking market through its credit cards.
According to Chris Sweeney, managing executive of Absa card, the parent company of Absa is targeting 100 000 high-end clients for the relaunch of its credit card.
This is likely to spill over to private banking territory, where the country's high-net-worth individuals do their banking.
Barclays enjoys the advantage of being a First World bank and wealthy South Africans may be tempted to join its camp.
The competition this will bring to the higher end of the banking spectrum may be welcome, particularly given the industry's relatively high transaction fees.
Because of the relative safety of card use compared to carrying cash around, card transaction fees need to be affordable.
This can be possible if there is meaningful competition among card providers.
Barclays' re-entry into the retail market also changes the overemphasis we have seen in the low-income segment.
While the spirit of the financial sector charter is worthwhile, high-net-worth individuals also deserve a choice in terms of not only financial products but also the providers of these services.
However, it remains to be seen how Barclays will leverage off the burgeoning Absa retail client base, the largest in the industry at almost 8.5 million.
While it was natural for Barclays to first attend to Absa Capital (formerly Absa Corporate and Merchant Bank) because of its lacklustre performance, the time has come for it to show some value add in the retail space to justify Barclays' payment of R33 billion for a 56 percent stake in Absa.
- With contributions by Justin Brown, Tonny Mafu and Ronnie Morris