Tag: foreign investment

Data is a key asset to any business – that’s why it’s crucial that it’s protected. Data can help businesses understand vital information, such as customer buying behaviour or enable digital payments. However, in the wrong hands, it can be abused. Consider the risk that cyberattacks and data breaches pose to businesses.

The immense socio-economic impact under one of the world’s most extreme lockdown’s during the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in South Africans uniting for their voices to be heard under a grassroots movement called Move One Million.

South African investors are still absorbing the twin blows of being downgraded by Moody’s into junk territory and, just four days later, the expected Fitch decision to take the South African sovereign debt rating down a further notch into junk territory.

According to the latest Employment Outlook Survey, South African employers report limited hiring intentions for the second quarter of 2020. While 8% of employers forecast an increase in payrolls, 5% anticipate a decrease and 85% expect to make no changes. Once the data is adjusted to allow for seasonal variation, the overall outlook for South Africa stands at +2%, unchanged from the previous quarter.

We are an investment manager investing in South Africa. Our capital comes exclusively from American investors. Being based in New York and Johannesburg gives us a useful perspective on how SA is perceived by the international investment community.

South Africans are surging towards the popular United States EB-5 Immigrant Investment Visa program ahead of possible price increases that will likely place the EB-5 program out of reach for many other than for the uber-rich.  NES Financial, the leading EB-5 financial brokerage in the U.S., has estimated a 600% increase in EB-5 petition filings from South Africans this fiscal year from three years ago. 

There is no denying that we live in the most technologically advanced era the Earth has ever seen and this is due to property rights and free trade. Removing restrictions on trade between individuals in a country is important, but removing restrictions on trade between individuals in different countries is arguably even more important given the enormous size of the global market compared to any single country’s domestic market.

The tragedy unfolding in Venezuela serves to prove a point long-settled by the failures of communist China, the USSR, Cambodia, Zimbabwe etc.

Victor Mphaphuli | Co-head | STANLIB Fixed Income | media@stanlib.com | www.stanlib.com | South Africa’s economic history since 1994 when the country first asked global...

Deepa Vallabh | Head: Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions: Africa and Asia | Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr | deepa.vallabh@cdhlegal.com | www.cliffedekkerhofmeyr.com | Over more than decade, a...