Advtech leadership shuffle and numbers

Strange. Advtech had delayed their results and have released them this morning, it looks like a week later than anticipated, nothing terribly bad about that. However, what is strange and fishy, is that Leslie Maasdorp is out. Here is the official line: "ADvTECH and the Group CEO Mr Leslie Maasdorp have reached a mutual agreement to part ways. The terms are confidential to the two parties." Well. And ex CEO Frank Thompson has been appointed interim CEO. Out and back in, whilst the company are looking for someone who is full time. Maasdorp has only been in the CEO role for a little over six months (less, full time), talk about a very short time there. And when does he leave? 23 March. Which is today. Confidential? Wikipedia has a sentence in the Corporate Governance segment that says: "Corporate governance practices are affected by attempts to align the interests of stakeholders."

I suspect that Coronation, who own just a little over 26 percent of the business have been enlightened (on behalf of their investors) as to what is going on there, you would think that nearly 1 billion Rand of investments (26% of 3.8 billion Rand), you should know. Or perhaps all shareholders are being fed the same news, I know that their PR agency was in damage control this morning. Paul got a call from Brunswick saying if he was discussing it on Hot Stocks, or if we had investments in this one, they would make time to fill him in. Paul said, no holdings, no discussion any time soon. I guess that in time all parties will reveal their sides of the story. The PIC have increased their stake this year to around 5 and one quarter of a percent.

At the same time the company stuck out numbers, average, good enough to meet the markets expectations, the stock is up one third of a percent after digesting the initial shock of the Maasdorp exit, it was down over three percent at the beginning. The stock is neither cheap nor expensive, it has rallied over the last 12 months as they point towards growth strategies, not without its pitfalls however. Since the beginning of 2013, the stock is up 50 percent. Here are the growth prospects, as per how the board sees it: "All three trading Divisions are showing positive performance trends that augur well for further growth in 2015. It is clear that growth prospects have been considerably strengthened and with a strong foundation in place and further investments to come, Group shareholders can look forward to higher growth rates in the coming years as we implement ambitious yet well considered strategies." I am not too sure that this is the best vehicle to take advantage of a swing by middle income South Africa to private education, it certainly is not a bad entry point. Advtech makes three times the profits Curro makes, Curro is constantly swinging for the fences and connecting each and every time.