BizNews Rational Radio

Rational Radio

Rational Radio is the weekly business news show hosted by BizNews editor Alec Hogg. It runs for around an hour and features leading commentators from the investment and financial world, including regular guest David Shapiro.
Weekly English South Africa Business News · Investing
421 Episodes
160 – 180

CFO shares the Naspers playbook: Another Tencent on the horizon?

The incredible story of Naspers is testimony to fact that success follows laser-like focus based on the right long-term vision. In this insightful interview with Naspers CFO Basil Sgourdos, the group has followed a similar playbook for decades: travel widely, expose yourself to global trends, take disciplined bets in promising…
24 Jun 2019 27 min

The Editor’s Desk: SA’s Multichoice winners & exotic game losers

Sometimes a winner looks like a loser and a winning bet looks like a losing proposition. In SA, Multichoice has been out of favour as viewers switch to streaming, while exotic game has been seen as a modern gold mine for the savvy millionaire. But looks can be deceiving. In…
23 Jun 2019 13 min

Billions you've allocated are still not enough to save Eskom, Mr President

Energy experts have welcomed the cash boost to address the debt mill stone for Eskom, but they say President Cyril Ramaphosa has not gone far enough and that he has not given enough detail. Opposition parties have accused the President of throwing money at Eskom, which had outdated organisational structures…
23 Jun 2019 12 min

FNB property economist predicts house prices will keep falling

FNB house price analysis suggests that owners of luxury properties in Cape Town are in for more disappointment, with prices likely to continue falling on the Atlantic Seaboard. Siphamandla Mkhwanazi, property economist at FNB, says a downward adjustment in property prices is likely to continue. Biznews's Jackie Cameron spoke to…
23 Jun 2019 8 min

SONA 2018: Cyril Ramaphosa starts with keeping on the lights

South Africans sometimes forget how far we’ve come since the days of Zuma and friends. And it’s none more apparent than through the annual State of the Nation address. Before it was almost a slogging contest of how far we’d come, what we’d done, as the ANC, which over the past…
21 Jun 2019 1 hr 14 min

Dave Woollam: A Tongaat whistleblower breaks cover

Former banking executive and now private investor Dave Woollam lives in the heart of KZN where the collapse of the province's once iconic corporation Tongaat Hulett has caused huge ructions. After picking up concerns among family and friends more than a year ago, chartered accountant Woollam started investigating by looking…
20 Jun 2019 8 min

Audiobook of Ramaphosa biography - sample before you acquire

Have a listen to the first seven minutes of the Preface to Anthony Butler's masterful biography on Cyril Ramaphosa.......it gives you taste of what to expect in the 22 hours that follow of the new audiobook now available for purchase and downloading at https://gumroad.com/l/ramaphosa-biography-audio  
18 Jun 2019 7 min

Bruce Williamson: Tongaat hit by "perfect bad news storm", probably not fraud

The chief investment officer of Integral Asset Management, Bruce Williamson, has been a long-time follower of KZN's iconic and now embattled corporation Tongaat Hulett. The veteran analyst, who has held senior positions at stockbrokers SBC Warburg, ABN Amro Securities and Imara Asset Managers (whose team left to form Integral), reckons…
17 Jun 2019 7 min

WEF's Han Yik: Most of us will outlive our retirement savings - by many years

The World Economic Forum is best known for its annual meeting in Davos every January. But in between that week in the spotlight, lots goes on at this multilateral institution, including a great deal of groundbreaking research. The release of a WEF report on retirement funding last week delivered a…
17 Jun 2019 7 min

Tony Fabian: Finding Good Hope for SA - and telling the world about it

I first met British film maker Anthony Fabian in London two years ago. At the time he was hoping to soon put the finishing touches to a series of eight documentaries he expected would help rebalance the awful global image of South Africa. We engaged a few times thereafter, contacts…
17 Jun 2019 7 min

Kulula creator Gidon Novick thriving in entrepreneurship, opens first hotel

Gidon Novick went into the family business (Comair), left when a major shareholder (Brian Joffe) wanted to change things and then worked for three years as CEO of Vitality and head of digital at global financial services disruptor Discovery. A chartered accountant with an MBA from Kellogg, he escaped the…
16 Jun 2019 7 min

The Editor’s Desk: Truth and lies at Tongaat Hulett

Bruised from the Steinhoff debacle, South Africa is facing a fresh corporate scandal with the news that Tongaat Hulett has requested that its shares be temporarily suspended over concerns about the accuracy of the company’s published financial statements. While the Tongaat situation seems to be more a matter of poor…
16 Jun 2019 20 min

Paul O'Sullivan on fresh accusations against Ramaphosa; Here's my verdict

South Africa's ace forensic investigator Paul O'Sullivan has re-entered the fray after the country's Public Protector issued a report accusing president Cyril Ramaphosa of misleading parliament. O'Sullivan takes us through the steps he took when called in to investigate whether the president, and his first born Andile, are guilty of…
13 Jun 2019 9 min
160 – 180