FirstRand and MMI, what happened there yesterday? The companies both issued new shares, a Reuters story titled S.Africa's FirstRand shares fall after new stock issued says that the stock was allocated to staff, an empowerment deal. In the Reuters story, an emailed answer: "Existing shares that were allocated to staff are being sold and new shares are being issued to normalise the NAV (net asset value)." The Business Day story titled FirstRand shareholders cash in R3.4bn. Ownership has been around 10 years since February 2005, is that at a corporate level a long time to be locked in and owning shares? My next question is, this specific windfall, how is it likely to impact on consumer spend, that is not nothing at all, that is a lot of money in the hands of not that many people.
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