Jsedirect With Simon Brown

Simon Shares Zimbabwean coup, or not coup or whatever. People are all asking me what's the best investment thesis here. There isn't one, a coup is not great for an economy. A democratic functioning state is what is good for investments. My comments last week about large M&A activity seldom working promoted a number of responses about successful deals - but all were private (not listed). This makes sense, no hype, no over paying. Just good old fashioned due diligence and right price paid. Consolidated Infrastructure Group (JSE code; CIL) update and delayed results is a massive mess. Third update and this one says we simple don't know how bad things will be nor if previous results are sound. Major management failure both to communicate to market and to manage the company. Spar (JSE code: SPP) results show revenue up 5.4% while operating costs increased 19.2%. Not good at all. Switzerland seems to be coming right, Ireland not and South Africa is tough. Netcare (JSE code: NTC) trading update is all about the