Monday mornings are for notes about the asset management trade. Vestact is a very successful small business. We have assets under management of R13.6 billion ($773 million) and a team of just 6 people in a single office in Rosebank.

We've done well because we've kept things simple, and carefully tended to our clients' capital since the business was launched in early 2002.

I was thinking about this when I read a quote from Shane Parrish over the weekend: "Success is built in rooms no one would photograph. People following the same unsexy routine, day after day. They aren't doing anything glamorous. They're just consistently making steady incremental progress over a long period of time."

We've picked good stocks over the last two decades, and been very conscientious about client service levels.

It's Michael replying to a new client query at 8 pm on Friday night. It's Bright sending a tax document at 9 am on a Saturday morning. It's Byron answering a client question on WhatsApp, about a stock we don't recommend, on a public holiday. It's me, triple-checking bank details before a time-sensitive global payment. It's all of us, writing this newsletter to you, every working day for over twenty years.

On Friday, I said that I prefer the analysis of Substack blogs from writers with skin in the game, versus articles in mainstream publications like The Economist. I got two interesting responses from our readers. The first was from a big fan of The Economist who reminded me that the media house was great at reporting general global events, which I do agree with.

The second reader asked me for an updated list of my favourite bloggers and email subscriptions. So here goes:


- Downtown Josh Brown
- Gene Munster
- Crossing Wallstreet
- App Economy Insights
- Stock Market Nerd
- Collabfund
- Piet Viljoen
- Finimize
- Codera
- After the Bell
- Biznews

Warren Buffett is retiring at the end of the year. Even though he's leaving in a few months, he still has influence over the market. In a recent filing, Berkshire Hathaway announced that it had bought $1.6 billion worth of UnitedHealth, the battered health insurer, which has lost more than 50% of its value over the last year. Thanks to the news, UnitedHealth shares jumped 11.8% on Friday, a rather significant move for a company worth $275 billion.

UnitedHealth is central to the US health care market, but has faced a number of headwinds recently. In December, one of its division heads, Brian Thompson, was murdered in a targeted attack by an anarchist. In May, CEO Andrew Witty resigned suddenly as the company withdrew its profit outlook for 2025. To top things off, the Department of Justice is also investigating the company over billing practices.

What makes this reaction from the market even more interesting is that there isn't any confirmation that it was Buffett who made the decision. There are two other portfolio managers at Berkshire, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, who could have been behind the UnitedHealth purchase. The $1.6 billion purchase is tiny for Berkshire, which is currently sitting on around $350 billion in cash.

For years, On Running and Hoka were bracketed together as the scrappy Europeans trying to unseat the sneaker establishment. Hoka was born in the French Alps in 2009, On was created a year later in the Swiss Alps.

Last week, the Swiss brand delivered another blowout quarter. On's sales jumped 32% to 749 million francs, beating estimates, prompting a nudge higher in full-year guidance to 2.91 billion francs ($3.6 billion). Investors liked what they saw, sending shares up 7%.

Hoka, meanwhile, is lagging. Its parent company, Deckers, has lost nearly half its market value this year as Hoka's US growth slowed to about 20%. Not bad by normal standards, but investors had been banking on more.

On has strung together quarter after quarter of 30%-plus growth since early 2023, aided by Nike's pullback from wholesale, which left valuable shelf space up for grabs. Growth was broad-based, with China a standout region, as retail sales there rose by almost 50%.

On's trajectory is hard to fault. It has carved out a sweet spot for itself with a premium yet versatile sneaker that works on the track, in the office, or under a boardroom table.

Last year, Apple was banned from selling watches that monitored blood oxygen levels. That stemmed from a patent dispute with Masimo, a medical devices company - Apple finds a workaround.

Deaths from cardiovascular problems are falling. Over a century of progress in surgery, drugs, prevention, and emergency response - Fighting heart disease and strokes.

Asian markets are mostly in the green this morning, lifted by optimism that the three-year war in Ukraine could finally be drawing to a close.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite is on course for its highest finish since August 2015. That's after a roughly 20% turnaround since April in the middle of the Trump tariff drama. Since then, all that happened was "truce extensions". Make of that what you will.

In local company news, the Competition Tribunal has approved the R20 billion management buyout of Barloworld. Standard Bank is backing the deal, guaranteeing up to R17 billion of the consortium's purchase price.

US equity futures are mixed pre-market trade. The Rand has strengthened to around R17.61 to the US Dollar.

It's springtime in Joburg, we are calling it. Have a prosperous week.