Last night after the South African market closed, RMB Holdings (share code RMH) announced that they plan to spin out their FistRand stake and then delist. RMH is effectively just a holding company for 34% of FirstRand; a legacy structure. Due to changing corporate governance standards and increased pressure from shareholders, these types of holding structures are being dismantled. Remember in 2016 Pick'n Pay restructured their holding setup?

Last week Remgro released their 6-month numbers, for the period ending 31 December 2018. Like most other South Africa focused companies, the lack of economic growth has hurt them. Given that they are an investment holding company, the figure that counts is NAV.

Vestact's local portfolios have had a tough few years. A number of our preferred stocks have really struggled. One has even gone down the drain (Steinhoff). There have been so many landmines to tread on, and investor sentiment on the JSE is very gloomy. However, we must go on searching for opportunities. Our newset idea is to lean towards diversity. We have decided to add Remgro to the list of Vestact recommended stocks.

Remgro released results for the six months to end December 2011 as the closing bell rang. Or the screens shut off for continuous trade into all sorts of trades that I don't know well enough. After market trades and the like. I like the old Remgro model, possibly before all the restructuring when it was still called the Rembrandt Group. Where the "Rupert magic" would have been at work in the past. Is it not fair to say that all the focus, all that magic would be elsewhere, at least from the point of view of Johann Rupert. I suspect that he is more interested in Richemont and Reinet than Remgro. But that presumes that the current management at Remgro is not a dynamic bunch. I am more inclined to think that the Steinhoff management and the PSG management (who know each other well enough) have a proven deal making ability that has worked for shareholders over the last half a decade. Although having acquired a large Grindrod stake means that Remgro have not been quiet at all.

On Friday we had two trading updates which I feel are interesting enough to cover. The first one was a good one from Remgro, the second was a not so good one from Basil Reed. Let's look at the Remgro one first. "Shareholders are advised that Remgro's reported headline earnings per share ("HEPS") for the six months ended 31 December 2011 is expected to be between 18% and 22% higher than the HEPS of the comparative six months ended 30 September 2010." They changed their financial year end, as you can see.

We had results yesterday from investment holding company Remgro. This one is slightly complicated because they have changed their yearend so these results are actually for 15 months. This makes valuations a bit difficult. Firstly and most importantly, let's look at the group structure so we know what we are analysing.

Anyhows, Remgro released results yesterday, this is for the full year to end March 2011. The headlines that I saw that grabbed me the most was, Remgro, still smoking without BAT. Quite, HEPS up over 17 percent to 811 cents per share. Remember that Remgro are in the middle of changing their year end and are expected to only pay their final dividend when they report for the 15 months to June, and that dividend payment is expected to be in November. Please do not patronise me and say that the intrinsic value is 136.12 ZAR per share when the stock trades at 110.59 ZAR a share. Are you telling me that the balance of the market are dumb to apply a 20 odd percent discount to your implied NAV? I guess that is what you are telling market participants.