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
60 – 80

This week's full show - Rational Radio focus on Eskom, Prosus, Comair, MTN and more

This week's episode of Alec Hogg's weekly Rational Radio show features interviews with SA's favourite market watcher David Shapiro; outspoken energy specialist Chris Yelland; Barbara Walsh of Metaco; Marius Hollenbach on the latest survey of SA mobile broadband speeds; and Bright Light Solar's CEO Kevin Shames.
13 Jan 2020 1 hr 11 min

The Editor's Desk: A deep dive into the darkness at Eskom

The troubles at Eskom have come to consume South Africa, absorbing attention, demanding discussion, and dominating headlines. Given the huge impact that the struggling utility has on everyone’s daily lives, this is unsurprising. This week was dominated by Eskom chair Jabu Mabuza’s resignation and a fresh wave of attacks on…
12 Jan 2020 22 min

SLR's on Boris, Corbyn, Scotland and impact on SA of massive UK election swing.

Biznews columnist Simon Lincoln Reader has been reflecting on the historic UK election victory for Boris Johnson's Conservative Party a week ago. His conclusions are stark - Johnson himself with be closely watched by unforgiving Northerners; the defeated Corbyn may well be "convinced" by his allies to stay as Labour…
19 Dec 2019 20 min

The Editor's Desk: Looking back at 2019… and ahead to 2020

2019 has been many things. Dull is not one of them. From load shedding to Tongaat, there has been plenty to occupy our minds. In this episode, Alec Hogg and Felicity look back at the year that was. They discuss South Africa’s progress (or lack thereof) at a national level…
14 Dec 2019 16 min

The Editor's Desk: Forget Ramaphoria, it’s time to get real

Load shedding once again paralysed South Africa this week, destroying confidence and eroding the viability of many businesses. As Eskom trotted out its well-worn “wet coal” excuse, many South Africans experienced a familiar frustration. Unfortunately, President Ramaphosa was nowhere to be seen – he was on a mission to Togo…
8 Dec 2019 19 min

Rational Radio: Tongaat, Sasol, Adrian Gore's shares and SARS Investigative unit

In this week's episode of Rational Radio, in order of appearance host Alec Hogg speaks with: David Shapiro, who unpacks similarities between Tongaat and Steinhoff, assesses SAA and explains Discovery founder and CEO Adrian Gore's R1.4bn share option transaction. Chris Logan of Opportune who has been on the Tongaat management…
2 Dec 2019 1 hr 10 min

The Editor's Desk: Tongaat and companies run by and for managers

As the details of the alleged accounting fraud at Tongaat Hulett emerge, former Tongaat executives are being targeted for criminal and civil charges. It’s refreshing to see managers being held accountable for their actions – all too often they seem to walk away unscathed, leaving pain and loss in their…
30 Nov 2019 14 min

The Editor's Desk: The FirstRand unbundling & SA’s junk rating

It was a week of contrasts. First, there was good news for shareholders as Remgro and RMH announced plans to unbundle a 40% stake in FirstRand. Then, more bad news for taxpayers as S&P revised its outlook for South Africa to negative, suggesting an additional downgrade is in the pipes…
25 Nov 2019 20 min

This week's Rational Radio - Sasol, Shapiro, O'Sullivan, S&P and SABC

In this week's episode of Rational Radio, guests in order of appearance were: SA's favourite market watcher David Shapiro on ESG investing, Sasol and Naspers/Prosus; Econometrix chief economist Azar Jammine warns that the S&P rating report on SA has major implications for long-term interest rates; SABC chairman Bongumusa Makhathini attacks…
25 Nov 2019 1 hr 03 min

The Editor's Desk: Orbvest and SAA and the DA, oh my!

After hosting a webinar with Orbvest, Alec Hogg had a number of questions from the community. In this episode, he explains why Biznews does these webinars and what the relationship with Orbvest is all about. He and Felicity Duncan also discuss the strike action at SAA and the reasons why…
16 Nov 2019 18 min

The Editor's Desk: Inside the Biznews/Lebashe deal and what’s next

This week, the Lebashe Investment Group announced the launch of its new media entity, Arena Holdings. More importantly (for us) it has signed a strategic equity partnership with BizNews. In this episode, Alec Hogg and Felicity Duncan talk about Lebashe’s acquisition of Tiso Blackstar’s media assets, the strategic thinking at…
9 Nov 2019 17 min

The Editor's Desk: What can we learn from Metaco and Comair?

While the specific tale of Comair’s acquisition of Metaco is unique, the story of failed acquisitions is as old as corporations themselves. Most mergers fail to deliver on their promises and end up costing more than they produce. In this episode, Alec Hogg and Felicity Duncan discuss the lessons that…
19 Oct 2019 16 min

The Editor's Desk: The Guptas, Angelo Agrizzi, and Iqbal Survé

It was a busy week on the corruption front. News broke that the Guptas have been sanctioned by the US Treasury, closing the net around their empire. Angelo Agrizzi sought and won a postponement ahead of a tough cross examination. And the Financial Sector Conduct Authority raided the offices of…
12 Oct 2019 16 min

The Editor's Desk: Behind our apology to Minister Fikile Mbalula

Last week, Biznews issued an unreserved apology to Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula. In this episode, Alec Hogg explains the background to the story and why Biznews has a policy of full right-of-reply. Alec and Felicity Duncan also discuss the changes Biznews has made to its model portfolio, explaining why we’re…
5 Oct 2019 23 min

Meet Masa Son - the "crazy" Vision Fund founder backing WeWork and Uber

After spectacular early successes backing AliBaba and Yahoo, Softbank's Masayoshi Son raised $100bn from investors in a matter of weeks. The Korean-Japanese behind the revolutionary VisionFund spent this money almost as rapidly, pumping billions into WeWork, Uber and their lookalikes - alongside unorthodox bets like $300m injected in to a…
4 Oct 2019 22 min

The Editor's Desk: Behind the failures of WeWork, Uber, et al

The failed WeWork IPO has dominated global business headlines in recent weeks, and with good reason. It looks like the “smart money” actually really is in public markets, where investors are rejecting stratospheric private valuations for loss-making “tech” companies that are actually old-fashioned businesses wearing techface. In this episode, Alec…
28 Sep 2019 16 min

Rational Radio - the full show featuring O'Sullivan, Shapiro, Watson.

Three forthright personalities feature in this episode of Rational Radio. In order of appearance: Paul O'Sullivan, founder of Forensics For Justice, reports back after a morning at the courts where he is defending himself in a harassment charge levelled by a businessman he accuses of paying R60m in bribes to…
25 Sep 2019 1 hr 02 min

The Editor's Desk: Alec Hogg on prescribed assets & Mboweni's plans

We’ve had a couple of weeks of important economic policy news and in this episode, Alec Hogg and Felicity Duncan discuss how the policy picture is changing. They spend some time on the proposed Prescribed Assets Requirements and talk about resistance to the policy ideas put forward in Tito Mboweni’s economic…
22 Sep 2019 18 min
60 – 80