Speaker 1: And now The Money Show with Stephen Credits on seven
Speaker 1: oh two.
Speaker 2: Let's walk lit all.
Speaker 3: The Money Show with Stephen Curtis is brought to you
Speaker 3: by ABS, a Corporate and Investment bank, proud sponsor of
Speaker 3: the African Blockchain Report twenty twenty four. Good evening, Welcome
Speaker 3: to the program. I'm Stephen Curtis. There are plenty of
Speaker 3: stories we'll touch on in the next few moments, some
Speaker 3: of them vitally important, including I think our conversation with
Speaker 3: the Health Funders Association. They're furious at these findings by
Speaker 3: the Council for Medical Schemes that some of the big
Speaker 3: medical aids that you will know and have heard of
Speaker 3: and may well belong to are guilty of some form
Speaker 3: of racism, I suppose in terms of paying out patients
Speaker 3: who had treatment from black healthcare providers, doctors, nurses, whatever.
Speaker 3: And we'll get to that in the moment. We'll talk
Speaker 3: about Trump and tariffs, because that's also vitally important. But
Speaker 3: the story that stuck out for me, and you can
Speaker 3: reach around and if you're young enough, put yourself on
Speaker 3: the back, is that we're all so keen to pay
Speaker 3: our taxes that the website crash today. Now, obviously that's
Speaker 3: because some people expect a SARS pay out. I wonder
Speaker 3: what that's like, But so fascinating to see that so
Speaker 3: many people are keen to sort it all out, get
Speaker 3: the situation going that actually the website crashed, and I've
Speaker 3: made this point before. I suspect that we're about to
Speaker 3: have a lot more discussions about SARS, be talking a
Speaker 3: lot more about SARS over the next couple of months.
Speaker 3: And let me just explain why I say this. The
Speaker 3: first is that there's been quite a big promise made
Speaker 3: by the Commissioner, Edward Kisvetter, that he can get a
Speaker 3: lot more money in. And by the way he started saying,
Speaker 3: I think by two years ago that in fact, he
Speaker 3: thought around a third of the economy was sort of untaxed,
Speaker 3: so he thought there was a lot of money out
Speaker 3: there that was owed. So fine, good. So the first
Speaker 3: thing that's going to happen is we're going to say,
Speaker 3: are you getting that money in? And if he falls short,
Speaker 3: and obviously he's not going to get it all in
Speaker 3: the first year. Can you imagine these are people and
Speaker 3: businesses and the elicited enterprises, criminal networks, whatever you want
Speaker 3: to call them that have been going for years and
Speaker 3: years and years untaxed. Not all going to happen at once.
Speaker 3: There's that point. But the second is that the disputes,
Speaker 3: the number of disputes around SARS and involving SARS, are
Speaker 3: simply going to rise. To put it another way, if
Speaker 3: you had to ask me, what should you do if
Speaker 3: you're in a dispute with SARS, I would say how
Speaker 3: much stomach do you have for a fight? Because I
Speaker 3: think they're keen to find the cash, more keen than
Speaker 3: perhaps they've been in just a little while. So I
Speaker 3: was strangely encouraged to see that the SARS website crashed today.
Speaker 3: Somewhere there's an IT guy shouting at an ID guy
Speaker 3: shouting at an ID guy. But what it does mean
Speaker 3: is that people are willing to interact with it and
Speaker 3: get on with it and sort it out one way
Speaker 3: or another, whether you're expecting a refunder, whether you just
Speaker 3: want to know what you owe. It's one of the
Speaker 3: great miracles of South Africa is that when SARS works,
Speaker 3: things are a lot better for all of us. I
Speaker 3: don't think I've ever spoken to on the radio an auctioneer,
Speaker 3: never mind an art auctioneer. Will be speaking to Susie
Speaker 3: Goodman later on the programm, executive director of Strauss and Co.
Speaker 3: She studied art history and then translated that into becoming
Speaker 3: an art auctioneer. I wonder if she knew that when
Speaker 3: she saw at her first year, but that would that's
Speaker 3: what would happen. Very interesting journey oh double one double
Speaker 3: A three oh seven two two one four ur six
Speaker 3: oh five six seven and voice notes this evening on
Speaker 3: seven two seven oh two one seven oh two. Lots
Speaker 3: going on, watching the White House very closely Tonight The.
Speaker 1: Money Show with Stephen Krudis live on ninety two point
Speaker 1: seven and one o six FM.
Speaker 2: Streaming on the Prime Media Plus map and DStv channel
Speaker 2: eight five six.
Speaker 3: The announcement of a finding today by the independent panel
Speaker 3: commissioned by the Council for Medical Schemes that medical aids
Speaker 3: you have heard of many of them, the government employee
Speaker 3: Medical Scheme med Scheme Discovery racially discriminated against black doctors
Speaker 3: and black healthcare providers. The panel, which was shared by
Speaker 3: the Advocate Timberk and Glucai Torby finding that claim submitted
Speaker 3: by patients who had black doctors or black health workers
Speaker 3: had a much higher chance of being investigated as compared
Speaker 3: to patients with white doctors and white healthcare workers. As
Speaker 3: a result, it seems that many black health care workers
Speaker 3: or patients had to wait longer for their payments were
Speaker 3: not properly paid out at all. There's some very interesting examples.
Speaker 3: According to the findings made, cheme was made. Scheme was
Speaker 3: six times more likely to investigate a claim from a
Speaker 3: black and ethetist than a white one. Black dental therapists
Speaker 3: who are three times more likely to be investigated. There's
Speaker 3: a long list of this. Thonishon Naid is the CEO
Speaker 3: of the Health Funders Association. Thanishon Good Evening, as I
Speaker 3: understand it, you reject the findings of this report. On
Speaker 3: what basis do you reject them?
Speaker 4: Thanks, Steven. So we're still actually studying the report. It
Speaker 4: was just released today, so we're still going through it.
Speaker 4: I think you know, firstly on an own basis that
Speaker 4: we note that the final report has been presented as
Speaker 4: including findings of systemic unsaid discrimination of profile, but it's
Speaker 4: actually not the case. Your reports when you read it,
Speaker 4: it's felicitly states that it does not make a legal
Speaker 4: finding of unfair discrimination. And also it does not make
Speaker 4: any finding regarding racial profiles. And we note that the
Speaker 4: internal report noted there was no explicit evidence of profile.
Speaker 4: So the one concern, and we've raised it throughout, is
Speaker 4: you know where where, for example, some of the conclusions
Speaker 4: have been drawn. They're based on a model, a statistical model,
Speaker 4: which is flawed because when we looked at it in
Speaker 4: a very high level, the analysis was looking at surnames
Speaker 4: and classifying them according to race. Now that was not
Speaker 4: peer reviewed by anybody, and there was significant amount of
Speaker 4: experts opinion, independent expert opinion which said, you know, that
Speaker 4: methodology is flawed. So we're a little bit baffled. It's
Speaker 4: been say, you know that the panel is actually placing
Speaker 4: reliance on a flawed methodology and then making conclusions from
Speaker 4: that respect. So I think, you know, we're still studying
Speaker 4: the report and follow.
Speaker 3: I mean, I can completely understand that to say to somebody,
Speaker 3: this is your surname, and therefore you must be of
Speaker 3: this race or ethnic group is problematic, I mean obviously,
Speaker 3: but in terms of big numbers, when you're looking at
Speaker 3: large numbers of people, I mean, I think in some
Speaker 3: ways it would be seen as common sense, we kind
Speaker 3: of know which groups tend to have which surnames, and
Speaker 3: the risk of your argument would be that you're using
Speaker 3: a technical reason to try and avoid a finding that
Speaker 3: involves race against your members.
Speaker 4: No, no, not at all. And remember, I think it's
Speaker 4: not me that's actually said that. This is several independent experts,
Speaker 4: you know, credible independent experts have come forward and actually
Speaker 4: said this is inaccurate. So we on that basis, you know,
Speaker 4: you can't place reliance on a flawed methodology.
Speaker 5: I mean sure, you know.
Speaker 4: For example, you know you've got regions in various places
Speaker 4: that let's say case it in which I think was raped,
Speaker 4: there are probably more Indian doctors there and Indian providers,
Speaker 4: so you'll see our higher likelihood of investigations or you
Speaker 4: know of that nature. But you know, we still go
Speaker 4: to the fact that in the methodology that's been and
Speaker 4: even though we provided evidence, you know, and resorts, the
Speaker 4: panel only relied on one single expert, which is flawed.
Speaker 3: Okay, do you believe then that there's no problem relating
Speaker 3: to race and medical aid claims?
Speaker 4: I do not. I do not believe that there's racial
Speaker 4: profile and and in fact, you know, the report actually
Speaker 4: says so that there isn't the case, and in fact
Speaker 4: it went further to say, uh, you know, uh there
Speaker 4: they didn't find any cases and won't call on to
Speaker 4: find any case of discriminational in factor said would specifically
Speaker 4: each case should come on its own case by basis
Speaker 4: to look at where there was discrimination, but there wasn't.
Speaker 3: Okay, So you can say that about anything that you
Speaker 3: need to go on a case by case basis, and
Speaker 3: in terms of finding justice for individuals, that's obviously what
Speaker 3: you have to do. I accept that. But there's also
Speaker 3: and this has been seen in other places, and I'm
Speaker 3: sure at some point there'll be findings here. There is
Speaker 3: also a thing such as institutionalized prejudice or institutionalized discrimination.
Speaker 3: I mean, the same report that you point to also
Speaker 3: seems to suspect say that, for example, Medschein was six
Speaker 3: times more likely to investigate a claim from a black
Speaker 3: and eth it'sis than a white one. Now, okay, you
Speaker 3: can use the surname argument there, but do you have
Speaker 3: any other explanation for why this would be the case?
Speaker 6: Were so?
Speaker 4: I think you know it's also important, why would those
Speaker 4: just specifically selected, you know, those particular ones and I
Speaker 4: think this really does go as if you look at
Speaker 4: various other ones, they're very much in line from what
Speaker 4: we understand. But you know, those ones have been selected
Speaker 4: for whatever reason, you know, as faces to be made.
Speaker 4: But it's not the fact situation across the body.
Speaker 3: But I mean, doesn't that still mean that black and
Speaker 3: nethethists are being discriminated against? It would certainly seem so
Speaker 3: just on you know, the primum first level, at this point,
Speaker 3: on face value, it would seem that there does seem
Speaker 3: to be some kind of problem in the medical aid industry.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, So I think let's a step back. Actually,
Speaker 4: maybe let's look at this. Right, ninety percent of providers,
Speaker 4: over ninety percent of providers are paid without any issue.
Speaker 4: Less than ten percent of providers are flagged. Right, and
Speaker 4: we're talking about medical schemes works on a trust basis. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you once you presented with the invoice within thirty days,
Speaker 4: you're automatically paid. It's only ten percent of providers that
Speaker 4: are flagged, you know, and then there's a white spectrum
Speaker 4: of that ten to spend. So it's broad waste and abuse.
Speaker 4: So some are you know, intention of fraud, which is
Speaker 4: a small percentage and some are actually a majority are
Speaker 4: actually billing errors. So when we talk about billing errors,
Speaker 4: we're talking about, for example, billing for ten liters of
Speaker 4: oxygen which could have been a type of when it's
Speaker 4: supposed to be both for one litera. Now that's an error,
Speaker 4: So that's flag right, and that's not necessarily a provider.
Speaker 4: It's been reflected on the analytics. There's no race in together.
Speaker 6: Men.
Speaker 4: Of course there's other ones which is provided as a
Speaker 4: flag for at a pharmacy for dispensing medicine when they're
Speaker 4: actually taking nappies. So those are intentional fraud. So we're
Speaker 4: talking about a small minority of providers here, you know,
Speaker 4: who are actually found as part of the fraud, waste
Speaker 4: and abuse perspective. So it's not a majority of the
Speaker 4: issues here.
Speaker 3: Okay, So just to be clear, funishing, you believe then
Speaker 3: that a patient treated by doctor and I do in
Speaker 3: a patient treated by doctor Hutez, their claims will be
Speaker 3: treated in exactly the same way byes.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, fairly and with our discommination furnishing idea.
Speaker 3: Thanks very much. Indeed, CEO of the Health Funders Association,
Speaker 3: Stephen has.
Speaker 2: Gone x at at Stephen or.
Speaker 3: The US Treasury Secretary Scott best Under confirming this afternoon
Speaker 3: that while the Trump administration will be sending letters to
Speaker 3: various countries informing them about the tariff sale face, those
Speaker 3: letters will still point out that there is still room
Speaker 3: for negotiation. The US President Donald Trump saying over the weekend,
Speaker 3: countries that are part of or align with Bricks will
Speaker 3: face an additional ten percent tariff. In other words, we
Speaker 3: would expect to pay ten percent more than whatever it
Speaker 3: is that we were going to pay as a result
Speaker 3: of our membership of Bricks. In fact, the presidents Aroma
Speaker 3: Porza in Brazil wrapping up his meeting with members of
Speaker 3: Bricks this afternoon. Yesh Ramklawan, he is the managing director
Speaker 3: and economist at DNA Economics. Yes, good evening to you.
Speaker 3: I do appreciate the time. I mean, I find myself
Speaker 3: once again in the position of wondering, how seriously can
Speaker 3: we take a Trump threat? Is it going to happen
Speaker 3: this time? Is he going to chicken out? Or are
Speaker 3: we just going to be in this unpredictable position for
Speaker 3: the next three years.
Speaker 7: Good evening, healen, and good evening to the listeners. Yeah,
Speaker 7: it's a valid question, are we going to see another
Speaker 7: Soucco trade in place? Very hard to say. I think
Speaker 7: if we step back and look at where we currently are,
Speaker 7: we know that South Africa faces the universal ten percent
Speaker 7: tariff on most of its products, although there are a
Speaker 7: bull range of products exclusions. There are the steel and
Speaker 7: aluminium additional duties of around fifty percent, and then the
Speaker 7: additional duties on vehicles at twenty five percent. So despite
Speaker 7: the fact that the direct or bilateral tariff on South
Speaker 7: Africa has been suspended until possibly the end of Wednesday Thursday,
Speaker 7: we still face a range of additional duties and very
Speaker 7: hard to say, I think the extent to which we
Speaker 7: will see the imposition of the additional thirty percent that
Speaker 7: was originally in place in April. So yes, lots of
Speaker 7: questions I think for everyone, and I.
Speaker 3: Suspect for a while to come if we do get
Speaker 3: the original tariffs he wanted to impose, or kind of
Speaker 3: a bit plus ten percent. I mean, at some point
Speaker 3: it must end out traditional trading relationship with the US.
Speaker 3: I realized there are exceptions and emphasids put those do
Speaker 3: to one side for a moment. But I mean, if
Speaker 3: we start looking at tariffs on a permanent basis of
Speaker 3: twenty five percent or more, let's say thirty percent or more.
Speaker 3: Isn't that pretty much the end of our goods into
Speaker 3: the US. It will just be too expensive in that market.
Speaker 6: So yes, and no.
Speaker 7: I think the products exclusions are actually quite important because
Speaker 7: if you look at Salaska's trade profile with the US,
Speaker 7: we can, at the risk of generalized in public categorize
Speaker 7: it into three broad categories, the first being South africa
Speaker 7: exports of primary commodities, a large proportion of which are
Speaker 7: actually included in the list of excluded products, those products
Speaker 7: that don't face the additional duties. And I think that's quite
Speaker 7: important to note because on the Trump administration side, their
Speaker 7: big focus has been on reindustrialization and improving the manufacturing
Speaker 7: base in the US. And if you look at all
Speaker 7: of a large proportion of South Africa's exports to the US,
Speaker 7: that is actually intermediate goods which feed into the manufacturing process.
Speaker 7: So even if we do get a big increase in
Speaker 7: import duties targets in South Africa, I think the product's
Speaker 7: exclusions would be very important to consider. Having said that, yes,
Speaker 7: there are a large number of other products which are
Speaker 7: not included in the exclusion list, which would face very
Speaker 7: significant consequences and the US consumer facing an additional forty
Speaker 7: or fifty percent duty on products such as citrus, blueberries,
Speaker 7: vehicles which caun't amongst the largest imports of I guess
Speaker 7: finished goods or consumer goods from South Africa. That would
Speaker 7: be very detrimental to South African exportance and probably effectively
Speaker 7: close off the market for South African exportance.
Speaker 3: The list of exclusions, which I suppose another way of
Speaker 3: looking at it as saying these are the levers we
Speaker 3: could use, right And I remember at the time, I
Speaker 3: think a lot of people sort of laughed in response
Speaker 3: when Guada Mantasha, the Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources,
Speaker 3: said we should just say we're not going to sell
Speaker 3: certain things to the US. But I do wonder more
Speaker 3: and more if actually platinum is the lever to say
Speaker 3: we're not going to sell you this stuff and good
Speaker 3: luck getting it from Russia.
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7: And I think a lot of the products that have
Speaker 7: been included in the product's exclusion list are what I
Speaker 7: have been termed critical minerals, although the exact definition of
Speaker 7: this varies across different countries and different classifications, but I
Speaker 7: think that is potentially one area of leverage for South Africa,
Speaker 7: and in terms of the bilateral trade talks that might
Speaker 7: be taking place and the list of offers that could
Speaker 7: be made by South Africa to the US. We currently
Speaker 7: do have an export tax on a small number of products.
Speaker 7: One of the options might be to raise the export
Speaker 7: tax on a border range of minerals exports to the US.
Speaker 7: Although again, if you look at how the US has
Speaker 7: reacted to China's in position of additional duties, they've ended
Speaker 7: up just raising duties. So it does risk a further
Speaker 7: trade war, if you want to call it that, between
Speaker 7: South Africa and the US. Although having said that, that
Speaker 7: is probably one of the core areas where South Africa
Speaker 7: has strong leverage compared to any of the other areas
Speaker 7: where we might be negotiating.
Speaker 3: It's fascinating from what I can see, we've been playing
Speaker 3: for time, and I'm sure there's a long list of
Speaker 3: countries playing for time saying let's negotiate this seriously, but
Speaker 3: let's do it over time. Do you think that the
Speaker 3: Trump administration is going to grant that? Again, an impossible question, yesh,
Speaker 3: But actually the US probably doesn't have much of a choice,
Speaker 3: because it surely can't negotiate with the entire world and
Speaker 3: sort of two hundred and ten or whatever different negotiations
Speaker 3: at once.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So, Stephen, I mean, if you look at trade
Speaker 7: agreements in history, these typically take anything between two and
Speaker 7: ten years to negotiate. So trying to negotiate I think
Speaker 7: somebody from the administration, the US administration that said they
Speaker 7: are going to negotiate ninety deals in ninety days highly improbable.
Speaker 7: If you look at the country that originally were targeted,
Speaker 7: it was about fifty plus countries targeted with the additional
Speaker 7: duties on Liberation Day in April. Out of those fifty countries,
Speaker 7: to date, we've heard of only one, I think it
Speaker 7: is Vietnam, where there's agreed some sort of agreement, but
Speaker 7: it's not clear exactly what. And then one country, which
Speaker 7: one even targeted, has reached some sort of framework agreement,
Speaker 7: but again not clear exactly what the detail of that is,
Speaker 7: being the United Kingdom. So I think the reality is
Speaker 7: that there will be some extension. Even in yesterday's press briefing,
Speaker 7: it wasn't very clear from President Trump whether or not
Speaker 7: it was going to be imposed this week, or whether
Speaker 7: or not the circuitary was actually correct in suggesting that
Speaker 7: it would be imposed in first of August. So I
Speaker 7: expect there will be some delayed reaction to the imposition
Speaker 7: of the tariff, and hopefully it'll just be a continuous delay.
Speaker 3: You and the rest of the world will all be
Speaker 3: holding thumbs together. Yes, thanks so much, I really appreciate it. Yes,
Speaker 3: Rum Clown and Managing director economists at DNA Economics, The
Speaker 3: Money Show, Sibernice and lomarlo Is, chief investment officer at
Speaker 3: the Old Mutual Investment Group Sibnio. Good evening holding thumbs
Speaker 3: along with the rest of the world. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: a terrible investment strategy, but maybe all we have.
Speaker 5: Go liveling.
Speaker 8: Stephen Coulibling to your listeners, Stephen, one of the things
Speaker 8: we like to say is is investing with perspective. And
Speaker 8: with all of this noise, I just wanted to take
Speaker 8: a step back. Half the year has been and let
Speaker 8: us look at perspective, which then will explain where we
Speaker 8: think the world is going. One of the things that
Speaker 8: is true is that if you look at being a
Speaker 8: Sathasrican investor has proven to be extremely profitable in the
Speaker 8: first half of this year, if you're invested in South
Speaker 8: Africa in the AUCHE index this year, for six months
Speaker 8: to date, you are up close to thirty percent, twenty
Speaker 8: nine point two percent. If you're invested in the S
Speaker 8: and P five hundred in the US with those big
Speaker 8: tech companies and all those companies, you'd be up five
Speaker 8: point five percent. And if you'd invested in emerging markets,
Speaker 8: you'd also be up just about five point six percent.
Speaker 8: And so therefore, with all of this noise that's going on,
Speaker 8: being invested in South Africa, given what's happened in our commodities,
Speaker 8: because we're commodity producing nation, especially in the PGM sector,
Speaker 8: has proven to be highly profitable, and so steven if
Speaker 8: I continue and I say, actually what drove this. One
Speaker 8: of the big things that happened in the first half
Speaker 8: was the US dollar fell over eleven percent. Now this
Speaker 8: doesn't look like a big move, but it's actually the
Speaker 8: biggest move, the worst start to a year in the
Speaker 8: US dollar in fifty years. And so why is the
Speaker 8: US dollar under pressure? Well, the US has got a
Speaker 8: lot of debt. In fact, they've got the seal amount
Speaker 8: of debt they last had back after.
Speaker 5: World War Two. We've got about thirty seven trillion in debt.
Speaker 5: Now a third of that, about nine point two trillion,
Speaker 5: is going to be refinanced this year in twenty twenty five. Now,
Speaker 5: the sticky part of that is that interest rates are high.
Speaker 5: They've gone high. At the last time when they were
Speaker 5: raising the state indust rates were close to zero. And
Speaker 5: so therefore, if you take tariffs, if you take high
Speaker 5: gateatedness in the US and the fact that it needs
Speaker 5: to be refinanced and a week of dollar, the US
Speaker 5: is under immense pressure. There's a devaluation of income and
Speaker 5: purchasing power. And so therefore, hence Trump has to try
Speaker 5: and raise revenues by imposing these terriffs because their own
Speaker 5: financial situation.
Speaker 7: Is not good.
Speaker 3: Sure, there's a lot going on there. I mean, platinum
Speaker 3: group metals have been suddenly almost out of nowhere, but
Speaker 3: not really out of nowhere, suddenly done very well over
Speaker 3: the last five weeks and now consistently, I mean the
Speaker 3: platinum the world platinum investment councils saying they expect prices
Speaker 3: to stay high for quite some time. Sort of expect
Speaker 3: them to say that, but it's a very rational thing
Speaker 3: to say.
Speaker 7: Yes, it is.
Speaker 5: I mean, all commodities, and the as the dollar weekends,
Speaker 5: commodity prices because they're treated in commodities, tend to go up.
Speaker 5: So that's good for commodities. So we want a week
Speaker 5: a dollar. That's why when we see a strong rand,
Speaker 5: that tends to be good for our commodities. But if
Speaker 5: we talk about the platinum group metals, platinum itself is
Speaker 5: up fifty percent this year. Palladium is up about twenty percent.
Speaker 5: Why are they going up, Well, basically, platinum group metals
Speaker 5: are used in what's called auto catalytic converters, which go
Speaker 5: in cars to obviously clean out the fumes that come
Speaker 5: out of the back of the car. And so therefore
Speaker 5: what's happened globally is that evs or illuctric vehicles, that
Speaker 5: penetration has tapered off, So that's starting to come off.
Speaker 5: It's not proving to be as sustained. But the platinum
Speaker 5: companies are not investing in new production and so therefore
Speaker 5: you've got the demand of internal combustion engines that is
Speaker 5: continuing to grow, whereas the supply of platinum that you
Speaker 5: need to obviously manage the embisions that is coming off,
Speaker 5: which means then prices have to adjust economics one oh one. Now, Steven,
Speaker 5: what's really good about this that Soasca produces seventy percent
Speaker 5: of PGM or platinum groups And the last time we
Speaker 5: saw a sharp rise in platinum group metals because we
Speaker 5: produced seventy percent of them, then they paid texas in
Speaker 5: South Africa. So if you go back to twenty twenty two,
Speaker 5: we saw the fiscus corporate Texas I think rolls about
Speaker 5: one hundred billion rand because of the Texas that came
Speaker 5: from the PLATINM group metals. So if glet and group
Speaker 5: metals keep going up, it's good for South Africa's budget
Speaker 5: and it's good for our stock exchange. Maybe it's a
Speaker 5: good time to invest in South Africa.
Speaker 3: See Venetian Lomarlo, Thanks so much, Chief investment officer at
Speaker 3: the Old Mutual Investment Group.
Speaker 1: The Money Show with Stephen crutis live on ninety two
Speaker 1: point seven and one o six FM, streaming on the
Speaker 1: Prime Media Plus NAP.
Speaker 2: And DStv channel eight five six.
Speaker 3: Well, I was watching President Seramposa just briefly sort of
Speaker 3: wrapping up the Brick Summit in Brazil, and he's been
Speaker 3: there for much of the weekend and just thinking sort
Speaker 3: of idly about bricks and trade, and it's worth just
Speaker 3: repeating a comment that's been made many times, which is
Speaker 3: bricks is not not yet a sort of trading block,
Speaker 3: and actually how difficult it will be to make bricks
Speaker 3: to trading block.
Speaker 9: Now.
Speaker 3: We do a lot of trade with China, obviously, and
Speaker 3: we do a lot of trade with Brazil, and you'll
Speaker 3: hear more about that in a moment. We don't do
Speaker 3: that much trade with Russia. Now. There's been a lot
Speaker 3: of discussion about our relationship with Russia, but we don't
Speaker 3: do that much trade with Russia.
Speaker 7: India.
Speaker 3: Now, India's interesting because on some level we have such
Speaker 3: a shared history with India. We have shared cultural links,
Speaker 3: we have shared sporting links. I mean, there are millions
Speaker 3: of people in India who watch more South African cricket
Speaker 3: than South Africans do for various reasons. And I'm really
Speaker 3: not making that up, by the way, it's true. And
Speaker 3: look at the SA twenty the cricket tournament that's played
Speaker 3: here that involves Indian franchises. I mean, the links are
Speaker 3: very very strong. The problem is that, for example, if
Speaker 3: you are our farmers, you'd be thinking, oh, let's sell
Speaker 3: oranges to India. Let's sell this to India. But I
Speaker 3: can't see any country in the world that will get
Speaker 3: around the political constituency that is in India. They are
Speaker 3: immensely strong and they will not allow you to trade
Speaker 3: very easily there. They will be tariffs, and I mean
Speaker 3: tariffs of you know, fifty percent kind of tariffs. So
Speaker 3: I do wonder at some point if someone somewhere can
Speaker 3: sit down and do some more deeper thinking about the
Speaker 3: trade that we that we are doing with bricks countries
Speaker 3: and the trade that we can do with bricks countries.
Speaker 3: And some of it's obvious, some of it's are a
Speaker 3: little bit more complicated. On one level, I know that
Speaker 3: people who support bricks will be thinking, this is the
Speaker 3: moment as the US seems almost determined to disengage from
Speaker 3: the global economy. What a Gullambalam call it a sort
Speaker 3: of brexit from the from the global economy. All of
Speaker 3: that said, it's a lot harder said than done, and
Speaker 3: maybe we'll have to come to terms with that double
Speaker 3: one double A three oh seven I do to one
Speaker 3: four four six O five six seven.
Speaker 1: That is on the Money Shows six to eight pm.
Speaker 3: We're talking about Brazil, you'll be able to buy Brazilian
Speaker 3: chicken products again. Our Agricultural Department it seems to have
Speaker 3: now lifted a ban on all chicken meat imports from
Speaker 3: that country following bird flu being found in the state
Speaker 3: of Rio Granda de Sul. Currently, Brazilian chicken is seen
Speaker 3: as a vital ingredient in our whole range of products
Speaker 3: that you can buy, including mechanically de boned meat. Now
Speaker 3: you might like your your bolone, you don't necessarily want
Speaker 3: to watch it being made, but most of that would
Speaker 3: include chicken from Brazil. Immamalan Motibi is the CEO of
Speaker 3: the Association of Meat Importers and Exporters Imamalan. A good evening,
Speaker 3: appreciate your time on the Money show. Obviously, all of
Speaker 3: this vital for your industry and for your association. You
Speaker 3: must be breathing a sigh of relief.
Speaker 4: We are.
Speaker 9: Later the must say stiven in good evening to their listeners.
Speaker 3: There's a much bigger issue here in all sorts of ways.
Speaker 3: So in the past we've banned imports from an entire country.
Speaker 3: I mean, if a country has that, if a country
Speaker 3: has avian fluenza, I can understand why it's incredibly contagious.
Speaker 3: Now we seem to be going states by state, so
Speaker 3: Brazil can show that it's controlled, that is not spreading
Speaker 3: with a lot of importance in is that an important shift,
Speaker 3: a significant shift?
Speaker 9: Yeah, Grin and Stevens as indicated, we are very excited
Speaker 9: to have reached this milestone. Brazil was the only country
Speaker 9: standing in terms of Avian influenza, and when they announced
Speaker 9: the outbreak late April, I mean in May, sorry, until then,
Speaker 9: all other countries we're coming in and out of an influenza,
Speaker 9: including South Africa. So I think, as we can see,
Speaker 9: it is a global phenomenon. The Keuy question is how
Speaker 9: do we manage diseases within the mid trade sector, because
Speaker 9: it looks like we are there.
Speaker 3: What would have happened if the bandits tayed in place
Speaker 3: for much longer? I mean, presumably it would have pushed
Speaker 3: meat product prices in South a grow up dramatically, and
Speaker 3: maybe some products wouldn't have been available, definitely.
Speaker 7: Seven.
Speaker 9: If you look at the mechanically debud meat monthly, we
Speaker 9: input about eighteen thousand tons into South Africa and all
Speaker 9: of that is for human consumption for the processing of polonies.
Speaker 9: As you mentioned, the Vienna's Russians, and that is product
Speaker 9: protail product that is mostly in the availability scope of
Speaker 9: the lower income consumers.
Speaker 5: In South Africa.
Speaker 9: We also import roughly four thousand tons of chicken feed
Speaker 9: one thousand, five hundred tons of gizzards. So offal is
Speaker 9: a key component as well in terms of the products
Speaker 9: that we bring in from Brazil because the local producers
Speaker 9: are not able to meet that demand. So it's not
Speaker 9: this place in the existing industry. It is complementing what
Speaker 9: the producers can provide based on the demand of the
Speaker 9: lower income consumers. We all know that the consumers are
Speaker 9: tight now in terms of affordability. Therefore they've been moving
Speaker 9: from chicken potions to where we are now in terms
Speaker 9: of offer and protest derived from mechanicality bond meat. So
Speaker 9: this is a key market for South Africa because it's
Speaker 9: the largest producer of these products we're speak in too.
Speaker 3: Globally, I mean and also pilchards. People have been looking
Speaker 3: at those two. I mean, Brazil, as you say, a
Speaker 3: massive supplier. In fact, I was told once that just
Speaker 3: one of their big farms matches our entire chicken outputs.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's astonishing. What happens to the global chicken
Speaker 3: industry of Brazil is cut out of it for some reason.
Speaker 3: I mean that would lead to a massive shift around
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 9: Actually, when the outbreak was declared in Brazil, it was
Speaker 9: a global clinic throughout all markets. You should have seen,
Speaker 9: in essence the cues of people that were countries that
Speaker 9: were going through Brazil in terms of going into negotiations
Speaker 9: on how to get around around the disease management programs because,
Speaker 9: in essence, because this had never happened in Brazil and
Speaker 9: in many other countries before it happened, countries used to
Speaker 9: have certain regimes in terms of protocols that never anticipated
Speaker 9: the development of an outbreak of diseases into it as
Speaker 9: part of what needs to be considered in trade. So
Speaker 9: essen when these eventualities happen, countries have then shifted to
Speaker 9: get into new agreements that accommodate that. But because Brazil
Speaker 9: had never had that, many countries had actually still not
Speaker 9: got into apport to a point of new arrangements that
Speaker 9: envisage the outcome of an avian influencer should it arrive
Speaker 9: at that point. So most countries we're not training.
Speaker 3: He mummaling, Thanks so much, Mummaling Mortiba is the CEO
Speaker 3: of the Association of Meat Importers and Exporters. Do you
Speaker 3: want to know how your Polonia has made?
Speaker 1: Do you really?
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Speaker 3: Looks like our wine industry maybe yet another casualty of
Speaker 3: how you're feeling about our economy. A little bit of
Speaker 3: a lack of confidence, it seems leading to a slight
Speaker 3: slow down, maybe a bigger slowdown in sales. So wine
Speaker 3: sales are down, bad news for wine farmers, maybe pretty
Speaker 3: good news for you. Michael Fridjohn is founding of Wine
Speaker 3: founder of Wine Wizard, Dots Dot to Day, visiting professor
Speaker 3: of Wine Business, Visiting professor excuse me of wine Business
Speaker 3: at the University of Cape Town and director at wine
Speaker 3: x and Michael good evening, good to chat again. How
Speaker 3: bad is the step? What's happening to wine sales?
Speaker 6: Definitely, you can see the figures and it's a fairly
Speaker 6: reliable report, the Vineymarket Market Review, and it does show
Speaker 6: that there's a general decline, but there's a stodginess, and
Speaker 6: that starginess is I'm afraid, a affection of our economy.
Speaker 6: I don't think it is all doom and gloom, but
Speaker 6: that's because I'm a perennial optimist, because I see things
Speaker 6: which are available to South African producers notwithstanding the threats
Speaker 6: on the horizon.
Speaker 3: So domestically, is it just about consumers spending and how
Speaker 3: people are feeling about money or is there some other shift?
Speaker 3: And we know younger people around the world are drinking
Speaker 3: less alcohol.
Speaker 6: Look I think there is that trend, but I have
Speaker 6: to say I'm not sure it's that evidence in South Africa.
Speaker 6: If you look at the crowd we had at Stanard
Speaker 6: Bank WINX last year, it was a very full haul
Speaker 6: for three days. It was a young crowd, it was
Speaker 6: a vibrant crowd, and it was crowd keen to learn
Speaker 6: about wine. And that for me is one of the
Speaker 6: silver linings to this cloud. African continent as a whole
Speaker 6: is a new frontier and the wine industries of the
Speaker 6: world have advanced from the eighties thrutl today by getting
Speaker 6: a new generation interested and involved with wine. So Margaret
Speaker 6: Thatcher created the Yuppi generation. The yuppy gen generation brought
Speaker 6: wine instead of beer and spirits the way it's parents did.
Speaker 6: Now Africa is that next frontier, and wine sales generally
Speaker 6: in Africa are more buoyant and are not being compromised
Speaker 6: in the same way as they are amongst the more
Speaker 6: mature markets, and as they are amongst consumers such as
Speaker 6: gen Z. So I do think that we have on
Speaker 6: our doorstep a new market ready to learn about wine
Speaker 6: and ready to imbibe. And what the industry has to
Speaker 6: learn to do is to communicate with that generation and
Speaker 6: to take advantage of the fact that they are there.
Speaker 6: We don't have to look as far afield as we
Speaker 6: did previously. We have to make more of our markets
Speaker 6: closer to home.
Speaker 3: In normal times, the ups and downs of an economy,
Speaker 3: is there normally a correlation between how much wine is
Speaker 3: being brought and drunk and what kind of wine and
Speaker 3: sort of consumer spending. In other words, if you look
Speaker 3: at our economic numbers, are you surprised at or to see.
Speaker 6: What you not surprised at all. You know, everyone says
Speaker 6: when the economies down, people drink more. If only that
Speaker 6: were true, they don't. If you don't have the money
Speaker 6: to spend, you are certainly not going to necessarily take
Speaker 6: it out in wine. One of the facts which may
Speaker 6: be skewing the figures, of course, is the size of
Speaker 6: the illicit market, and it's now estimated by the industry
Speaker 6: to be at least forty percent total alcohol sales. The
Speaker 6: government does nothing to close down on the illicit traders,
Speaker 6: many of whom are obviously extremely well connected. So if
Speaker 6: you talk to the sales guys, they will tell you
Speaker 6: they know how much money they're losing. So the volumes
Speaker 6: are going through. We're not being able to pick them
Speaker 6: up on the figures, but definitely, as a general rule,
Speaker 6: in times of recession, people spend less, which means that
Speaker 6: either buy less or buy cheaper.
Speaker 3: This is probably an impossible question, what are less that
Speaker 3: wine whine made legally be cheaper only because it's not
Speaker 3: paying the X size tax and the other taxes, or
Speaker 3: would it be cheaper because it's made in a different
Speaker 3: way to.
Speaker 5: The answer too is both.
Speaker 6: So the really illicit alcohol market is product called ale,
Speaker 6: which is essentially a fermentation which doesn't require any fruit
Speaker 6: of any sort use simply use sugar and yeast, colorant
Speaker 6: and flavorant. That of course is very cheap to produce,
Speaker 6: and in addition, of course it doesn't pay that and
Speaker 6: it doesn't pay tax once wine has been produced. If
Speaker 6: somebody is clever enough and it doesn't take a huge
Speaker 6: amount of skill in a situation as porous as ours,
Speaker 6: to move a whole bunch of that bulk to an
Speaker 6: elicit trader, and that trader is able to run a
Speaker 6: cash business that doesn't account itself to sars, well, then
Speaker 6: of course there's a massive saving in that and x
Speaker 6: SIS and in the lower end of the wine market.
Speaker 6: That is a significant amount of money that can be saved,
Speaker 6: and it can go into pupsucker, can go into returnable glass,
Speaker 6: or it can go into plastic, plastic being probably the
Speaker 6: packaging of choice for that market.
Speaker 3: So, with all of this happening at the moment, if
Speaker 3: you are a wine drinker, are there some bargains on
Speaker 3: bargains around that wouldn't normally be around or perhaps more
Speaker 3: affordable than they are in normal times.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, because cashlow is a problem. They've had a fabulous
Speaker 6: twenty twenty five vintage, both good volumes and obviously fantastic quality,
Speaker 6: and producers have to clear the pipeline in order to
Speaker 6: pay for packaging. You've got to get rid of whatever
Speaker 6: you have in your cellars. So for those who constrain
Speaker 6: cash flow, the only possibility is discounting, so consumers can
Speaker 6: look forward to better prices from people trying to clear
Speaker 6: past vintagers to make way in their sellars for the
Speaker 6: great twenty twenty fives.
Speaker 3: Michael Ford John really appreciate the thought. Thanks so much.
Speaker 3: Visiting Professor of Wine Business at the University of Cape
Speaker 3: Town and founder of Wine Wizard dot co dot CEDA
Speaker 3: as well and of course the person who formed wine X,
Speaker 3: but just interesting to see if this is the moment
Speaker 3: for someone to actually sort of develop the taste for
Speaker 3: it and then move into you know, the right kind
Speaker 3: of vintage. It is, as you heard, as you said,
Speaker 3: a moment where there could be some bargains that are
Speaker 3: around in a moment. Looking forward to speaking to Vais Sadiki,
Speaker 3: the author of the book Hoopris Maximus, The Shattering of
Speaker 3: Elon Musk. I was paging through it today, some astonishing
Speaker 3: stories that come out of it, and the timing, of
Speaker 3: course couldn't be better considering what Musk has been up
Speaker 3: to over the weekend. So looking forward to that in
Speaker 3: the next hour. Don't forget we'll be talking to an
Speaker 3: auctioneer from seven point thirty as well. Good evening you
Speaker 3: at the Money Show. It's seven o'clock The Lonely Show.
Speaker 1: With Stephen Crudis Lion on ninety two point seven and
Speaker 1: one o six FM, streaming on the Prime Media.
Speaker 2: Plus NAP and DStv channel eight five six.
Speaker 3: So I was fascinated by report today in News twenty
Speaker 3: four around cell phone coverage and you may sort of
Speaker 3: be frustrated about where you live in the cell phone
Speaker 3: coverage that you get. Did you know that just on
Speaker 3: Vodacon there are six and a half million devices that
Speaker 3: rely on two G cell phone coverage. You know what
Speaker 3: two G gets you? It gets you voice caused and
Speaker 3: s messes. That's pretty much it. I mean, it's not
Speaker 3: even EDGE. I think you know it might be EDGED.
Speaker 3: You remember EDGE. I mean I have very bad memories
Speaker 3: of EDGE. You wouldn't even be able to sort of
Speaker 3: manage on WhatsApp on that. And you might say to yourself,
Speaker 3: are they really six and a half million people that
Speaker 3: actually have cell phones that are only two G? And
Speaker 3: I think the answer might be, well, yes, if you
Speaker 3: consider they're about one hundred bucks. You use them as
Speaker 3: a spare, You use them as your sort of alarm,
Speaker 3: your FM radio, and to make calls if you need to,
Speaker 3: and it costs you virtually nothing where you just use
Speaker 3: it as a radio and make one phone call a month.
Speaker 3: And I think I can see the problem trying to
Speaker 3: switch that off, and people would want to switch them off,
Speaker 3: they want to use the spectrum for other things I
Speaker 3: value things. Is actually quite difficult. I'm sure. Also there
Speaker 3: are sort of other devices that use some cards that
Speaker 3: are not cell phones. So just off the top of
Speaker 3: my head, and I'm kind of making this up. Maybe
Speaker 3: the weather service uses them or something, but there'll be
Speaker 3: some sort of group of devices together that'll use TWOG.
Speaker 3: In the moment someone says we're going to switch them
Speaker 3: off tomorrow, you'll find out exactly how many people use
Speaker 3: two G devices. It's a fascinating and interesting side of
Speaker 3: our country. But six and a half million two G
Speaker 3: devices still on on Vodacom alone.
Speaker 2: Seven oh two with Stephen email him on Stephen at
Speaker 2: seven o two dot co DOTZ.
Speaker 3: Well a promise from the Finance miscity you not got
Speaker 3: iguana to improve its oversight of the Public Investment Corporation.
Speaker 3: He sold an action samb that this might include a
Speaker 3: restructuring of how it's managed by convention. The chair of
Speaker 3: the BIC the PIC has been the Deputy Finance mister
Speaker 3: or a Deputy Finance minster. Looks like that position will
Speaker 3: now be held by someone who's politically neutral, I presume,
Speaker 3: an investment expert. At the same time, the PSC is
Speaker 3: facing questions about its role in the daybreak saga that
Speaker 3: saw that company being allowed to collapse. Sconati Manchanja is
Speaker 3: a journalist with News twenty four investigations secanatic Good evening,
Speaker 3: Excuse me I forgot an award winning journalist with News
Speaker 3: twenty four investigations. We all remember the in party inquiry.
Speaker 3: It made recommendations some time ago. Are we now finally
Speaker 3: going to see all of those being implemented?
Speaker 11: Stephen good afternoon. That's what politicians do when they get
Speaker 11: asked questions. They always make promises. But if you'll remember,
Speaker 11: this Empathic Commission gave those recommendations over over three years ago,
Speaker 11: and to date, very little has changed in the governance
Speaker 11: of the Public Investment Corporation. Still far too much power
Speaker 11: is invested in the politicians, in the form of the
Speaker 11: Finance Minister.
Speaker 3: I mean the idea of removing the politic politicians chair.
Speaker 3: On the face of it, that would seem to be
Speaker 3: a good idea from what you're saying. Actually there needs
Speaker 3: to be a lot of other changes.
Speaker 11: Absolutely, that is only that would only be a good start.
Speaker 11: But it is only that a start. What does need
Speaker 11: to happen is one for the Public Investment Corporation's board
Speaker 11: to be appointed, not by the Finance Minister, as is
Speaker 11: currently the case, who then delegates his deputy to chair
Speaker 11: the board. The all normal companies, in terms of the
Speaker 11: company's act, are governed by a board of directors that's
Speaker 11: elected by shareholders. Now, in the case of the public
Speaker 11: investment corporation, the shareholders are the beneficiaries who who are
Speaker 11: the civil servants current and past who benefit from from
Speaker 11: the management of its funds. Those are the people that
Speaker 11: work for the state and for parasitital entities such as,
Speaker 11: for example, the Unemployment Insure Fund and such other similar entities.
Speaker 11: They need to be able to elect the board and
Speaker 11: the majority of the board. They are independent non executive directors,
Speaker 11: with the exception of the chief financial Officer or finance
Speaker 11: director and chief executive officer, and of course, in the
Speaker 11: case of the PIC, the chief investment officer. The rest
Speaker 11: of the people do need to be appointed by the
Speaker 11: people who shall care. They can for each decisions good
Speaker 11: and bad.
Speaker 3: There's another sort of philosophical question about the public investment corporation.
Speaker 3: It's so big, it receives so much money to invest
Speaker 3: that it could create almost not just new companies, but
Speaker 3: almost entire industries. And I just wonder if you look
Speaker 3: at the coalition era we're in the sort of scope
Speaker 3: for patronage, etc. I mean, maybe it's just too big
Speaker 3: in some way, Sikanati. I mean that might seem a
Speaker 3: strange thing to say, but the opportunity for badness wrongdoing
Speaker 3: is so vast.
Speaker 11: There is, indeed a very big opportunity for for things
Speaker 11: that should not be done to actually be done and
Speaker 11: are being done and have always been done by by
Speaker 11: by the people appointed that's so peter again by the
Speaker 11: finance minister. And I'm not questioning the integrity of the
Speaker 11: current Finance minister, but all finance ministers have been appointing
Speaker 11: the board of the public Investment Corporation, concentrating so much
Speaker 11: vast power that they have three trillion brands in control
Speaker 11: of of of assets which which need to be to
Speaker 11: be vested in the in the hands of professionals. Those
Speaker 11: are the people that I manage assets as professionals, not
Speaker 11: people who then have to go to to politicians at
Speaker 11: every occasion, where they of course obviously always get asked
Speaker 11: for particular favors. And you know what that does when
Speaker 11: politicians are involved.
Speaker 5: And have any power.
Speaker 11: You have seen the disasters that for example, in Daybreak,
Speaker 11: the chicken, the chicken farm, the chicken company, that you
Speaker 11: have just mentioned now that was acquired by the PC
Speaker 11: in twenty fifteen and in ten years it was totally
Speaker 11: destroyed by the management that was appointed by the Public
Speaker 11: Investment Corporation. Again, you need to avoid those disasters. I
Speaker 11: mentioned the VPS Mitchell Bank, which again was destroyed through
Speaker 11: that the appointment by a board that was partly the
Speaker 11: PC was responsible for that. Of course it sent senior
Speaker 11: members as directors there. So there are many disasters that
Speaker 11: could be avoided by normalizing the governance of the public
Speaker 11: investment corporation. In companies where you and I our consciens
Speaker 11: are invested, the boards of those companies regulate themselves and
Speaker 11: shareholders are always hovering around. For example, in the Public
Speaker 11: Investment Corporation, currently the finance minister, any finance minister or
Speaker 11: the finance minister in office at the time just wakes
Speaker 11: up after year three of the board and replaces everybody
Speaker 11: and they appoint whoever they choose. Of course, they will
Speaker 11: place those superficial advertisements which have no serious requirements whatsoever,
Speaker 11: and therefore professionals asset management and life insurance professionals really
Speaker 11: stay away from applying for those. But then becomes the
Speaker 11: system of the people who normally are unemployed and unemployable,
Speaker 11: who are really in good terms with the people currently
Speaker 11: in office and government. That does need to change if
Speaker 11: you need to safeguard those investments held by Deputlent Investment Corporation.
Speaker 11: Of course, should that change, we also need to get
Speaker 11: to a point where the PIC ceases to be a
Speaker 11: defined benefit contribution, where people are guaranteed what they will
Speaker 11: get as they put in. You and I, our pensions
Speaker 11: are managed through the open market and we depend on
Speaker 11: the outcomes of market performance of the time, whereas the
Speaker 11: civil servants, the tax players are underwriters of that fund.
Speaker 11: That does need to change in order to bring about modernization,
Speaker 11: professionalism on the board, and certainly to take away power
Speaker 11: from the politicians, who we know what politicians do when
Speaker 11: they come in contact with money or the possibility of
Speaker 11: managing other people's money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, I mean a big part of it isn't
Speaker 3: it is the unlisted investment portfolio, because the listed investment
Speaker 3: portfolio we can kind of see. But is that way
Speaker 3: we need to have a lot more scrutiny. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's the daybreak story.
Speaker 6: Really stephn on all of.
Speaker 11: Those and I must say the understood portfolio is only
Speaker 11: about one hundred and seventy billion rent to one hundred
Speaker 11: and ninety billion rates out of three trillion rents in assets.
Speaker 11: The fact that you know or you can see where
Speaker 11: the assets were invested in terms of the listed companies
Speaker 11: and in terms of bonds and government debt doesn't change
Speaker 11: the fact that the people that were appointed to manage
Speaker 11: the funds are themselves accountable to very questionable people. To
Speaker 11: put questionable politicians. It becomes worse than when it comes
Speaker 11: to the understood funds because you really have no clue
Speaker 11: where the money goes. I don't know how big the
Speaker 11: mandate of the of the management team is in order
Speaker 11: to sign off on individual investments, but whatever the size is.
Speaker 11: In normal companies, boards will will go sorry, the executive
Speaker 11: management team will go to the board for final approval
Speaker 11: or on a big investment that's regulated by the Takeover
Speaker 11: Regulation Panel, it's regulated by the Companies Act, it's regulated
Speaker 11: by other market forces. When it comes to the PAC,
Speaker 11: you don't really see that kind of rigorous regulation, which
Speaker 11: again has direct impacts on the performance of the fund
Speaker 11: and the performance of the or other The fortunes of
Speaker 11: the only beneficiars of that fund. It does need to
Speaker 11: change and has been needing to change, particularly in the
Speaker 11: state culture era the last fifteen years.
Speaker 3: Definitely second Narti man Chancha, thanks so much. Journalist with
Speaker 3: News twenty four investigations the My show Business books well,
Speaker 3: astonishingly over the weekend, Elon Musk claiming he'll be starting
Speaker 3: his own political party. He says, both the Republicans and
Speaker 3: the Democrats are failing Americans. But the real reason, I suppose,
Speaker 3: probably presumably there's this break with Donald Trump, the president
Speaker 3: of the big beautiful bill that was passed last week. Well,
Speaker 3: it's either just lack or sheer production excellence. That tonight
Speaker 3: your business book, because Hubris Maximus, it's the Shattering of
Speaker 3: Elon Musk. By phayase Zaddiki, a journalist at the Washington Post,
Speaker 3: joining us now, pay is a good day to you.
Speaker 3: Ready to appreciate the time. Congratulations on the book. Someone
Speaker 3: like Elon Musk fascinating, complicated. Mercurial might be a word
Speaker 3: that people use. The subject of several biographies, you focused
Speaker 3: primarily on some of his disputes, his fights, his arguments
Speaker 3: with regulators. Why did you focus on that? What did
Speaker 3: you think was so interesting about that. What does adelask?
Speaker 12: Hey, So, first of all, thank you for having me.
Speaker 12: I think, I mean, we've seen the proof kind of
Speaker 12: play out regarding his dispute with the President of the
Speaker 12: United States. We've seen sort of the proof of the idea,
Speaker 12: I suppose. I think the book gives readers a preview
Speaker 12: of the way that these spats played out with regulators,
Speaker 12: as you mentioned, or safety investigators or officials at you know,
Speaker 12: every seemingly every possible level of government or official life.
Speaker 12: You know, Musk would engage in what seemed like at
Speaker 12: times petty disputes or disputes that were not necessarily helpful
Speaker 12: to his businesses, but you know they were to advance,
Speaker 12: you know, what he believed was right. And we've seen
Speaker 12: this dynamic now play out with a person who some
Speaker 12: might argue is the most powerful in the world. And
Speaker 12: you know that attitude of Musks extends even to the
Speaker 12: presidency of the United States.
Speaker 3: You detail in one account there was an investigation into
Speaker 3: one of his cause that was involved in an accident,
Speaker 3: and it really mattered because it was about the sort
Speaker 3: of quote unquote auto driving feature of a tastelet, right,
Speaker 3: and he's speaking to I think it's you called it.
Speaker 3: The National Traffic Safety Board in the US. He's actually
Speaker 3: being interviewed formally over the phone by an investigations and
Speaker 3: halfway through he gets so annoyed that he just put
Speaker 3: the phone down. I mean, that's an astonishing sort of
Speaker 3: insight into his character, right.
Speaker 12: I mean, in companies you know, who have been under
Speaker 12: the microscope and you know, this type of scrutiny from
Speaker 12: the National Transportation Safety Board have obviously you know, reacted,
Speaker 12: not reacted positively right to those types of investigations. But
Speaker 12: the seeming breach of the established protocols to conduct this
Speaker 12: kind of investigation, and the lack of recognition of the goal,
Speaker 12: which you know, for the NTSB at that point seemed
Speaker 12: to be gathering information in the interest of advancing safety
Speaker 12: at you know, at any cost, even if it has
Speaker 12: to be an uncomfortable conversation. You know, that lack of
Speaker 12: recognition from from Musk was evident early on. You know,
Speaker 12: he just does not want to play that game if
Speaker 12: it's going to result in you know, discomfort, unexpected or
Speaker 12: unwanted scrutiny, or potentially.
Speaker 5: Get in the way of his broader ambitions.
Speaker 3: There's been acres of what we used to say newsprint,
Speaker 3: but by which I mean discussion here in commentary about
Speaker 3: whether part of Elon Musk's character in the way has
Speaker 3: behaved in the US is because of his upbringing here,
Speaker 3: and whether it's a sign of maybe I don't know,
Speaker 3: as a sort of time in which he was growing up,
Speaker 3: a sign of disrespectable authority, or maybe just feeling that
Speaker 3: he's better than everyone else. That doesn't seem to be
Speaker 3: a big feature of your book necessarily, but I mean,
Speaker 3: do you think that's I mean, dude, do you think
Speaker 3: Americans see it like that, that he's like that because
Speaker 3: he's from here.
Speaker 12: I think I have encountered that attitude obviously, as you mentioned,
Speaker 12: you know, it's not a feature, you know, of discussion
Speaker 12: in the book, but I do think it occurs to
Speaker 12: people that, you know, maybe the specific conditions of Musk's
Speaker 12: upbringing and some of what I do go into, you know,
Speaker 12: the bullying he faced as a child, or you know,
Speaker 12: his family life. You know, this idea of competition, of
Speaker 12: you know, a zero sum game. You know, like these
Speaker 12: things factoring into his business and you know, managerial style.
Speaker 12: It's not it's not like a you know, for completely
Speaker 12: foreign idea. Do Americans view it that way? I think
Speaker 12: certainly this question came up at a time when the
Speaker 12: Trump administration was looking to take in immigrants from South Africa.
Speaker 1: You know, well.
Speaker 3: The issues around Twitter, around X and I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: someone who years ago used to love X and now
Speaker 3: haven't tweeted full over a year just because he seems
Speaker 3: to have destroyed it. Maybe it was hitting that way anyway.
Speaker 3: But at one point, you say, he sent an email
Speaker 3: to employees that they had to commit to quite enjoyed
Speaker 3: this phrase hardcore Twitter, astoniesting thing to say, but the
Speaker 3: writing was on the wall. He was going to turn
Speaker 3: next into what it is.
Speaker 12: Yeah, I mean, and this is another area where there
Speaker 12: seems to be a principle at play. It's this free
Speaker 12: speech absolutism, free speech maximalism. You know, let's welcome back
Speaker 12: individuals who or accounts whose suspension Musk objected to. But then,
Speaker 12: as the book lays out, there were times when there
Speaker 12: seemed to be arbitrary decision making that worked in Musk's favor,
Speaker 12: where you know, there were accounts that were you know,
Speaker 12: not necessarily Musk's favorite, who were subjected to discipline or
Speaker 12: were not you know, accepted on the platform. If you
Speaker 12: look at journalists in particular, if you look at an
Speaker 12: account that was tracking the location of Musk's private jet
Speaker 12: and the treatment of that account. So for all of
Speaker 12: the discussion that Twitter then became this cesspool and it
Speaker 12: was in the interest of free speech. There were now
Speaker 12: questions about whether Musk was actually abiding by the tenant.
Speaker 3: That he laid out, which was free speech absolutism. There's
Speaker 3: a quote that there's a graveyard of his enemies. It's
Speaker 3: a quote described to him. Actually, there is a long
Speaker 3: list of people who've gone up against him, and most
Speaker 3: of them have kind of been flattened. How's he been
Speaker 3: able to run over so many people so strong? I mean,
Speaker 3: obviously he is clever. I mean, let's just accept that.
Speaker 3: But there must be something more to it. There's a
Speaker 3: force of personality.
Speaker 12: I think that is an area where the comparisons to
Speaker 12: President Trump seems strongest. Right, these are individuals who repeatedly
Speaker 12: have not faced the same consequences as you know, comparable
Speaker 12: individuals in their positions would, Right, and so how has
Speaker 12: Musk been able to, you know, I suppose get away
Speaker 12: with it all? He has this platform and he now
Speaker 12: own there's a platform that he now owns which allows
Speaker 12: him tremendous influence. He is also the richest person in
Speaker 12: the world, and for a time he was a close
Speaker 12: ally and you know, key advisor to the US President.
Speaker 12: So it's just an illustration of the power and the
Speaker 12: concentrated power that he has commanded.
Speaker 3: I was a little bit surprised that. I mean, look,
Speaker 3: like everybody, we kind of expected to bust up between
Speaker 3: Musk and Trump. But on all things, the issue of
Speaker 3: US government debt, it's not sexy, it's not interesting, is
Speaker 3: very important. Musk may actually be on the right side
Speaker 3: of the argument. Do you think this was a relationship
Speaker 3: that they were just looking for the right rock to
Speaker 3: break it on?
Speaker 12: Not necessarily, And I take the point, but not necessarily,
Speaker 12: because if you look at Musk's history, you know, when
Speaker 12: he has a goal in mind, and you know, there
Speaker 12: can be arguments on whether that is the right goal,
Speaker 12: whether that is the righteous thing to do, whether it's
Speaker 12: you know, morally the correct principle. But when he has
Speaker 12: a goal in mind, it is difficult to deter him
Speaker 12: from that specific goal. And that's a personality trait that
Speaker 12: I like to think is you know, laid out repeatedly
Speaker 12: within the book that you know, if he is focused
Speaker 12: on one aspect of the company or one of the
Speaker 12: areas of technology that he's overseeing, you know, he cannot
Speaker 12: be deterred from that easily. And you know, cutting federal
Speaker 12: spending and reducing the national debt was one of the
Speaker 12: tenants he laid out. Of course, people wonder like, why
Speaker 12: why is he so focused on that He's hinted at,
Speaker 12: like it's in service of this other goal to you know,
Speaker 12: get humanity to Mars. So if he sees it as
Speaker 12: genuinely obstructing the goal, it stands to reason that, all right,
Speaker 12: he is now going to you know, mount to fight
Speaker 12: against it.
Speaker 3: He's not going to change course. Is He's not going
Speaker 3: to change behavior. It's worked for him. That's how he'll
Speaker 3: see it. He's clever and better than everyone else. And
Speaker 3: I mean, this is how he is.
Speaker 12: I mean, I was frankly a bit surprised that he
Speaker 12: dialed back his attacks on Trump, and you know, he
Speaker 12: even said, you know, he regretted that some of it
Speaker 12: seemed to have gone too far. That felt like recognition
Speaker 12: that you know, maybe this was not a fight, that
Speaker 12: that you know, would serve his best interests. But yeah, no,
Speaker 12: in general, he's not someone to back down.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much. Indeed, by his Sidiki really appreciate
Speaker 3: the time. The book is ubers Maximus The Shattering of
Speaker 3: Elon Musk. Some of his disputes make for fascinating reading.
Speaker 3: Just gone seven thirty Money.
Speaker 2: So how I make my money?
Speaker 3: Well, you may, of course know, there are lots of
Speaker 3: different roos to end up in certain different fields, but
Speaker 3: not many people do a degree in art history and
Speaker 3: end up running an auction house. One of them is
Speaker 3: Susie Goodman, now the executive director of Strass and Co.
Speaker 3: Susie good Evening, and thanks so much for being to
Speaker 3: spend some time with us on the Money Show tonight.
Speaker 9: Oh Seger, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: You started by studying a history of art degree at
Speaker 3: uct Art and let me just let me just get
Speaker 3: this out the way. Art had no fascination for me
Speaker 3: when I was at school. Clearly it was very different
Speaker 3: for you.
Speaker 4: Ah.
Speaker 9: Yes, And luckily I also have a few genes in
Speaker 9: my family and both my mother studied art in Johannesburg
Speaker 9: and my dad was a wildlife photographer. So I suppose
Speaker 9: the apple didn't fall very far from the tree, but
Speaker 9: they certainly weren't involved in auctions.
Speaker 3: Okay. And at the time when you started studying history
Speaker 3: of art, did you think this is what I was
Speaker 3: going to do, because there aren't many ways to make
Speaker 3: money with that degree.
Speaker 9: Oh, you're absolutely right, and no. I actually also did
Speaker 9: take geography just as a sideline because I thought maybe
Speaker 9: I better branch out a bit. But I was very lucky.
Speaker 9: I realized that actually there are many different facets to
Speaker 9: the art world, and auctioneering is actually something that lots
Speaker 9: of people don't talk about or don't know about, and
Speaker 9: particularly in this part of the world, the secondary market
Speaker 9: is a small market. So I was lucky. I did
Speaker 9: a post graduate degree that taught me about the magic
Speaker 9: of the auction world and how you can sell anything.
Speaker 9: And I did think that I would be a jewelry specialist,
Speaker 9: which is, as much as I love jewelry, I like
Speaker 9: too many things now, so I think maybe I'm more
Speaker 9: of a generalist.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I mean the number of times that I've
Speaker 3: seen in auction, I haven't seen many. I do remember
Speaker 3: as a child watching someone on the side of a
Speaker 3: road just auctioning whatever it was that they had, and
Speaker 3: I found it fascinating. There's clearly something that you find
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's a vibe a feeling, but
Speaker 3: something mesmerizing about a good.
Speaker 9: Auction there certainly is. And actually, just as a sideline story,
Speaker 9: I was asked by Tito as you know, which is
Speaker 9: a training institute in this country, to help be involved
Speaker 9: in training auctionais, and I had to say that I
Speaker 9: experienced the wide variety of auctioneers. So you have cattle auctioneers,
Speaker 9: car auctioneers, property auctioneers, art auctioneers, and I sometimes think
Speaker 9: that's quite fun because we talk very differently. So there
Speaker 9: was a wonderful Zimbarbie auctionnaire who you sell tobacco, and
Speaker 9: he started before me and he was going but I
Speaker 9: like that, and I was like, oh my goodness, and
Speaker 9: I had to come after him and go to two thousand,
Speaker 9: two thousand, two hundred, two thousand, five hundred. So it
Speaker 9: was quite amusing. But the thing that grabs me about
Speaker 9: an auction is is that it's the culmination of an
Speaker 9: amazing journey of finding artworks to sell on behalf of
Speaker 9: the seller and obviously presenting them to the future buyer,
Speaker 9: and then working with the buyer and putting and placing
Speaker 9: them in a collection. But the bit about auctions that
Speaker 9: rarely really grab me is that you don't raally know
Speaker 9: what's going to happen on the night, because yes you've
Speaker 9: got a value, yes you've got a reserve, yes you've
Speaker 9: got people interested. But if you have all of the ingredients,
Speaker 9: you've got two or three people who land up fighting
Speaker 9: for it, you can the numbers get bigger, and the
Speaker 9: excitement gets bigger, and the adrenaline gets drive faster. And
Speaker 9: I think that's the bit I just love that magic,
Speaker 9: is that the ultimate price is defined when the hammer falls.
Speaker 9: But I like that drama. I love the fact that
Speaker 9: you don't know who's going to be on the phone
Speaker 9: or who's going to be in the room. So for me,
Speaker 9: it's a it's an amazing privilege to be able to
Speaker 9: sell art this way.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's interesting that's actually quite a few movies that,
Speaker 3: now that I think about it, have scenes involving auctions
Speaker 3: because of that inherent drama. It's it's actually I imagine
Speaker 3: being part of it is far better than watching anyone
Speaker 3: trying to create a fictional account of it.
Speaker 9: It absolutely is. And I'm sure you realize that a
Speaker 9: few weeks ago we sold the painting for thirty one
Speaker 9: million rand, and I promise you you could have heard
Speaker 9: not only a pin drop, but you could hear everyone
Speaker 9: inhaling as the price drew and exhaling as the next
Speaker 9: person bid, and it was just it was, yeah, you
Speaker 9: can't make it up. But it's the most extraordinary. It's
Speaker 9: the most extraordinary sensation. But also it is you know,
Speaker 9: it's full of it's like a performance, but it's not
Speaker 9: really a performance because it's real life. So I think
Speaker 9: that's that's the bit that it does catch you. It
Speaker 9: is evoperative, So you're right. There are lots of movies
Speaker 9: that have very good looking people taking auctions, and there
Speaker 9: tends to be sort of a Thomas Crown Affair moment
Speaker 9: when something gets pinched off the wall. But luckily that
Speaker 9: doesn't happen too often, so it's you know, but it does.
Speaker 9: It does create the sort of magic of I suppose
Speaker 9: prestige and celebrities and numbers, but I often remind people
Speaker 9: that we auction things with just as much passion for
Speaker 9: a thousand round as we do from aly a million round,
Speaker 9: million round, gets a bit scary, but we do sell
Speaker 9: all varieties of pricing by auction.
Speaker 3: And I mean there is there is as much excitement
Speaker 3: when something that's relatively at relatively low cost is suddenly
Speaker 3: increasing in value as opposed to something you expect to
Speaker 3: go for a lot. I mean, in a way, something
Speaker 3: you expect to go for a thousand round going for
Speaker 3: two thousand, it's a lot more exciting than something you
Speaker 3: expect to go for a million going for one too.
Speaker 9: Absolutely. And actually the bit that Steven that sometimes is
Speaker 9: really humbling bit is that because we deal with the
Speaker 9: people who's selling, often we know the story about why
Speaker 9: someone's selling, and so you can see the person who's
Speaker 9: brought the work in for a valiation day, and perhaps
Speaker 9: they're very desperate for some money, or they're trying to
Speaker 9: pay their university fees, or they're trying to put the
Speaker 9: deposit down in a house, and they've got this sort
Speaker 9: of that whole of works of art that they're hoping
Speaker 9: they can realize a little bit of money towards those dreams.
Speaker 9: And then those works start climbing, and the share amazement
Speaker 9: when somebody they're getting a thousand round and they get
Speaker 9: two and a half thousand rund, or they're thinking something
Speaker 9: which we value the five thousand round. Suddenly people are
Speaker 9: fighting over it and we sell it for twenty five
Speaker 9: thousand round. Those moments are so incredible and are so joyful.
Speaker 9: There is also the sad side when someone is desperately
Speaker 9: needing it and then something doesn't sell, and that's hard
Speaker 9: because that also the reality of business. Not everything finds
Speaker 9: a home, as much as we try to find homes.
Speaker 9: But it's that sort of emotion of you're not quite sure.
Speaker 9: We say it's a value, and then it goes for
Speaker 9: the right amount or what go above it, and that
Speaker 9: moment is also quite exciting.
Speaker 3: Are there certain things that you that you find this
Speaker 3: happens to this sort of a level of excitement than others?
Speaker 3: And I'm presuming in my own head, I'm thinking that
Speaker 3: this must happen to works of art where you get
Speaker 3: a much higher price, a much more exciting auction than
Speaker 3: almost anything else. I mean, yes, maybe they're fancy cars
Speaker 3: or elon musks, mug or something, and that I'm presuming
Speaker 3: it's art where you're more likely to have that happen.
Speaker 9: I think you're right, because there is you know, as
Speaker 9: a lot of people know art is not a you know,
Speaker 9: it's not bread or milk or your necessities. It's an
Speaker 9: amazing privilege to have a piece of art owner. It
Speaker 9: gives you joy, It gives a different satisfaction to an
Speaker 9: essential necessity. So I think there's which comes with auctions.
Speaker 3: Is that an.
Speaker 9: Amazing feeling of I love it, I've fallen in love
Speaker 9: with it, I like it, I want to collect it,
Speaker 9: I need to own it. I would love to have
Speaker 9: it on my wall. So there's emotion in it that
Speaker 9: sometimes a little bit less. It's very different to maybe
Speaker 9: somebody who's trying to buy a card a second hand auction,
Speaker 9: because that's probably just a pure transactional fact. But the
Speaker 9: bit that I think the bit that is special about
Speaker 9: those moments in.
Speaker 6: The auction world.
Speaker 9: You have stories, and an artwork keeps that story with
Speaker 9: it because if somebody, for example, bought it from the
Speaker 9: artists and has owned it in their collection for a while,
Speaker 9: and they knew the artists, and they follow on and
Speaker 9: say they've made it for a wedding or they made
Speaker 9: it for a birthday, those stories keep going with the
Speaker 9: picture as much as we can hopefully recall it or
Speaker 9: they're a wonderful story about who owned something or it
Speaker 9: was in the collection, as you know, you mentioned somebody
Speaker 9: like David Bowie. All of those things have stories that
Speaker 9: I bought something from a David Bowie's collection. What it
Speaker 9: encourages encourages evocative competitive bidding because you want a slice
Speaker 9: of it, and that you don't get when you're doing
Speaker 9: secondhand cards.
Speaker 3: For sure, there is some artwork which is incredibly contentsial.
Speaker 3: I can think of one example. I spent as a
Speaker 3: as an e WN reporter a couple of days outside
Speaker 3: a gallery which there's the same name that you do
Speaker 3: that very controversial artwork, and that I mean that must
Speaker 3: it must have come as a surprise to all involved.
Speaker 3: Then I think it did. But there must be times
Speaker 3: when you look at a piece of work and you think,
Speaker 3: sure there's a controversial story, or it's a controversial piece,
Speaker 3: or they're the person who created it, or maybe a
Speaker 3: previous owner is now controversial. Actually I don't know if
Speaker 3: I want to touch this.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think that's I think that comes with I
Speaker 9: think that's a very good point, and I think that
Speaker 9: comes with the story of things. And I think the
Speaker 9: one thing that I've learned about the art world is
Speaker 9: that everybody, there's something for everybody, and there's different tastes
Speaker 9: for different people, and there are different genres for different subjects.
Speaker 9: If something has had a you know, for example, an
Speaker 9: artwork that's been damaged on artwork that has been if
Speaker 9: you take actually which you reported on, if you take
Speaker 9: that artwork that we handle the stolen pioneers in a sense,
Speaker 9: not that we could auction it because it belongs to
Speaker 9: the state, but the story behind that is so intriguing.
Speaker 9: I mean it is if it ever came up to auction,
Speaker 9: it would it would increase in value. I mean they
Speaker 9: say in the auction world they are aspects that you
Speaker 9: always put into too value, which is the collection that
Speaker 9: comes from how good a piece, what condition is, in
Speaker 9: what period it was painted. You know, with the wow factor,
Speaker 9: that work would have a wow factor, and it would
Speaker 9: it would cause a stir of excitement because it has
Speaker 9: such an intriguing story with it. You're right, not every
Speaker 9: story you want, not every story you can you necessary.
Speaker 9: Maybe you want to pass on that sense, but you
Speaker 9: also have to realize that the artwork is still a
Speaker 9: wonderful artwork whether you like it or not. Might not
Speaker 9: be your taste, but it might appeal to somebody else.
Speaker 9: They tend to I think that's what's quite nice about art.
Speaker 9: It tends to find the homes that needs to go to.
Speaker 9: But I do find the story intriguing. I mean when
Speaker 9: you when you meet somebody who inherited something or got
Speaker 9: it from the artists, or I mean the other day,
Speaker 9: because we sold the treat Chikoff, there was another client
Speaker 9: who had a Treachy Coff they sold and they bought
Speaker 9: it directly from the artist, and her husband died. So
Speaker 9: she phoned up Tretchi Coff and said should I sell it?
Speaker 9: And he said absolutely not. You must wait until I'm
Speaker 9: really really dead. And you know, those kind of stories
Speaker 9: are quite fun, but they make it sort of I
Speaker 9: don't know, it's quite nice. If you had it on
Speaker 9: your wall, you could retell it. So that maybe I
Speaker 9: like the auction world too, because it's about people. Somebody
Speaker 9: made the art, somebody's going to own it. Somebody will
Speaker 9: own it, so I guess it's the cycle of life.
Speaker 5: Really.
Speaker 3: It's an astonishing comment by Trichikov to say that, but
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm afraid to say probably correct, Yes, it
Speaker 3: is when you started, you actually went over season. You
Speaker 3: went to Christie's and there renowned auctioneers in the UK,
Speaker 3: where many I mean, I can't think of out the
Speaker 3: places really in South Africa that you could have learned
Speaker 3: art auctioneering. I mean, there aren't many options to sort
Speaker 3: of get into that business.
Speaker 9: No, it's a much smaller pool here. I was very
Speaker 9: lucky to go and work at Christie's and I was
Speaker 9: very lucky to try. You have to go through an
Speaker 9: auctioneering course. I was a little bit cheeky because we
Speaker 9: went on the court and we were bidding, and we
Speaker 9: were learning how to breathe and to do the increments.
Speaker 9: And at Christie's they run the auction book, so where
Speaker 9: the auctioneer has the estimates and the reserves and the bids,
Speaker 9: they run it in code. So they use in case
Speaker 9: somebody stole the auctionaires book, they wouldn't be able to
Speaker 9: read the increments of the people's bids that have been left,
Speaker 9: so they use a sort of code, which is you
Speaker 9: have to learn and then you have to do a practice.
Speaker 9: And now all of these auctioneers looking at you. And
Speaker 9: when I started auctioneering, there were only four women globally
Speaker 9: that were auctionaeers, so it was quite fun to break
Speaker 9: some of those barriers. But I was a little bit
Speaker 9: cheeky because the auctionnaire, who was sort of running that day,
Speaker 9: said to me, I don't quite understand what you're saying.
Speaker 9: So I said, oh, which bit? He said, Are you
Speaker 9: saying the bid is on the left or are you
Speaker 9: saying the bid is in the lift? And so I thought,
Speaker 9: oh my goodness, so I said no, I think maybe
Speaker 9: it's my accent. So he said, oh, oh, oh, yes, perhaps,
Speaker 9: And I said, now, an auction entre, an international company,
Speaker 9: wouldn't it be good to have a South African accent?
Speaker 9: So I was a bit duty but luckily I was
Speaker 9: able to do it, and it was the first auction
Speaker 9: I took. I remember standing in the rostrum and South
Speaker 9: Kensington was a sort of part of the Christie'sburg had
Speaker 9: King Street in South Kensington, and South Kensington had this
Speaker 9: wonderful atmosphere of selling house sale contents and silver and furniture,
Speaker 9: so it was quite There was quite a lot of
Speaker 9: lots and they let me cut my teeth on a
Speaker 9: silver sale and I remember standing up and going, oh
Speaker 9: my goodness, this is real money. Because until you get
Speaker 9: to that moment, which is a culmination between the buyer
Speaker 9: and the seller, it sort of his numbers. But suddenly
Speaker 9: the reality of like, oh, this is really a lot
Speaker 9: of money. But it was only fifty pounds. But still
Speaker 9: I think the nerves and what I was doing, it
Speaker 9: was like, oh, but the fun part about it is
Speaker 9: that you get your style, you get your flow. I
Speaker 9: talk fast, as you know, and so I got the
Speaker 9: sales that had a lot of loss, so you had
Speaker 9: to get through three hundred lots. And they would say, suesue,
Speaker 9: you do it because you can talk quickly. But when
Speaker 9: we were training, and I'm sure other auctionaiers that maybe
Speaker 9: have experiences too, one of the people who are training
Speaker 9: I said, you know, sometimes in the middle of an auction,
Speaker 9: you can because you can be up there for two
Speaker 9: or three hours. They said, you know, sometimes your mind
Speaker 9: just wonders and you can find yourself thinking, oh, my goodness,
Speaker 9: you know what's for dinner? And I remember thinking that's
Speaker 9: impossible because there's too many things between the increments and
Speaker 9: the clients and the telephone bids and the code. And
Speaker 9: then I suddenly one auction was dowding there going oh,
Speaker 9: should we have chicken or maybe we should have beef.
Speaker 9: So you do find your mind is working fast, but
Speaker 9: it can wonder. But the tempo is important. So as
Speaker 9: I mentioned earlier, you know, cattle auctionaiers have a different tempo.
Speaker 9: We do too. When you're selling something like wine, you
Speaker 9: definitely go faster than when you're selling you know, a
Speaker 9: big tentridge or an erma sterne in the millions that
Speaker 9: you have to you have to CeNSE the room and
Speaker 9: you have to use the style of bidding an increments
Speaker 9: that suit what you're selling.
Speaker 3: There's so much to it, all right. We're speaking to
Speaker 3: Susie Goodman, the executive director of Strauss and Co. She's
Speaker 3: an art auctioneer How she makes her money on The
Speaker 3: Money Show Tonight.
Speaker 10: The Money Show with Steven Chrutez is brought to you
Speaker 10: by APPSOL Corporate and Investment Bag Browse, sponsor of the
Speaker 10: African Blockchain Report twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Four, The Money Show, How I Make My Money.
Speaker 3: Susie Goodman is the executive director of Strauss and Cosey's
Speaker 3: the art auctionneier. We speaking to her this evening. Susie,
Speaker 3: they when you started, I'm presuming that auctions were really
Speaker 3: in personal on the phone. I'm presuming they're done in
Speaker 3: lots of different ways.
Speaker 5: Now, sure, that's a very good question, he is.
Speaker 9: Since COVID, they're completely transformed. Before COVID, we have a
Speaker 9: room of three or four hundred people an auction. Post COVID,
Speaker 9: we're grateful when they're fifty people in the room and
Speaker 9: we've got six hundred people watching us online, and obviously
Speaker 9: then we've got a bank of telephones and people's bids
Speaker 9: in our book. So I did find myself in the
Speaker 9: middle of COVID looking at it as a sort of
Speaker 9: computer and a camera and thinking, my goodness, that people
Speaker 9: watching us, but we've got no connection, and you sort
Speaker 9: of imagine then what are people doing? Are they working
Speaker 9: or making tea or eating supper. One client told us
Speaker 9: that when we had a live auction, we sort of
Speaker 9: became their sort of evening entertainment because you could see us,
Speaker 9: but we couldn't see them. So, yeah, it's the personal side.
Speaker 9: Sometimes that's a bit I missed, because when somebody's bidding
Speaker 9: in the room, there is definitely a rapport. You can
Speaker 9: see if someone you know could possibly bid again, or
Speaker 9: they've had enough and it has its I guess you
Speaker 9: have to adapt. But then we're also very grateful because
Speaker 9: so many more people are bidding, so many more people
Speaker 9: accessing artworks on the art community and the art market
Speaker 9: on the southern part of the continent because of the digitalization.
Speaker 9: So I think it's got a very big, shiny silver lining,
Speaker 9: even though we might miss the nuances of being able
Speaker 9: to use someone in the room and you often can.
Speaker 9: You know, there's those great stories like you mentioned in
Speaker 9: the movies where somebody comes into an auction room and
Speaker 9: they're sort of waving at their friend to see their seat,
Speaker 9: and you, as the auctionaire, I can make a little
Speaker 9: bit of a jokert and say, you know, are you bidding,
Speaker 9: and then you know, two hundred thousand for you, and
Speaker 9: they suddenly go, oh, no, no, no, I was just waving.
Speaker 9: So those wonderful moments that add to the atmosphere are
Speaker 9: a little bit different when you're looking at you know,
Speaker 9: TV and six hundred people watching.
Speaker 3: It, I can imagine. I mean, I presume then that
Speaker 3: the more people who are in the room, whether they're
Speaker 3: virtually or actually in the room, the more people bidding,
Speaker 3: the greater the chance that you're going to get higher
Speaker 3: than you expected. I mean, the more people are involved,
Speaker 3: the more money for the seller.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 9: Yes, And obviously there's some lots that attract a lot
Speaker 9: of bidding, particularly and that's when you get some of
Speaker 9: those fantastic prices, and lots attract one person. But when
Speaker 9: you've got a good sale that's been well marketed and
Speaker 9: we've reached goodbye, then it should make for a better
Speaker 9: felty rate and many more of the lots in the
Speaker 9: art sales cell. So I think, yes, you do. You
Speaker 9: do want to have lots of people online. I mean,
Speaker 9: even if they're just watching there, maybe understanding the process
Speaker 9: so that they can bid or sell. And I think
Speaker 9: that's you know, there's also an intrigue like, oh my goodness,
Speaker 9: I'd love to see what that work. I saw it,
Speaker 9: I viewed it, but I'd love to see what it
Speaker 9: actually fetched. At the end of the day, you mentioned
Speaker 9: something about training, and I think that's one thing that
Speaker 9: I think was really important about being in London because
Speaker 9: it's such a big market. The nuances of the rules
Speaker 9: and regulations around auctions and art auctions in particular is
Speaker 9: incredibly important. Because when I was at Christie's there was
Speaker 9: the big anti you know, antitrust case between Southeysi and
Speaker 9: Christie's when they colluded over commission, and of course it
Speaker 9: all went to court and as you know, what happened.
Speaker 9: But for us, it was an amazing place to learn
Speaker 9: properly the rules and the transparency and how you do
Speaker 9: it and how the increments works. So, you know, because
Speaker 9: I think there's an understanding, sometimes people think I don't
Speaker 9: quite understand it is what I'm getting the right thing.
Speaker 9: And because we learnt and we work with the international rules,
Speaker 9: we very much coherently make sure that we are applying
Speaker 9: you know, the right You're not bidding off the chandelier.
Speaker 9: Sometimes people can accuse us of because it's misunderstanding, and
Speaker 9: I think that was one of the biggest privileges of
Speaker 9: being in a big pond. Those rules and regulations were very,
Speaker 9: very defined.
Speaker 3: The future of auctioneering. I have a horrible vision of
Speaker 3: a sort of AI bart trying to conduct an online auction,
Speaker 3: and on one level, you could do that in text
Speaker 3: quite easily. I can't imagine that it would be any
Speaker 3: fun for some people. That wouldn't necessarily matter. But do
Speaker 3: you worry that the role of an auctioneer could be
Speaker 3: diminished over time.
Speaker 9: I think there's always going to be you know, I
Speaker 9: really look at a pure online sale. There's always a
Speaker 9: place for that because you're able to sell things over
Speaker 9: a while without having somebody in the rostrum talking for days.
Speaker 9: But I don't think you could replace an auctioneer in
Speaker 9: a high value sale or a sale that has important works,
Speaker 9: because sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes somebody builds on the
Speaker 9: wrong lot and then you have to reverse it, and
Speaker 9: you have to undo it and say no, let's start again.
Speaker 9: Those nuances of the sort of flying plates in a
Speaker 9: Greek kitchen scenario, those things can't You wouldn't be able
Speaker 9: to use a bot to manage it. It would be
Speaker 9: too many. You'd have to train it for a long
Speaker 9: time to learn some of the scenarios that auctioneers have
Speaker 9: to use on their feet or adapt in a situation.
Speaker 9: But I think it would take take out too much
Speaker 9: of the Yeah, I don't think you'd get the drama
Speaker 9: and the excitement and the nuances and the character. I
Speaker 9: think a bot would be very clinical, and yeah, I
Speaker 9: hope not, because it would be it wouldn't be nearly
Speaker 9: as fun having a challenge of I don't think I'd
Speaker 9: get the timing. They definitely wouldn't get the problem solving aspect,
Speaker 9: because those things you do have to think on your feet.
Speaker 9: If somebody, you know, suddenly someone wants to split an increment,
Speaker 9: how is the bot going to know? Was? Brodie could
Speaker 9: train it, but it wouldn't be nearly as fun to
Speaker 9: be able to sell everything by an AAI generated Bob.
Speaker 3: So much about AI is Yes, it could be done,
Speaker 3: but what would be the point? And I think this
Speaker 3: is a good example of that. Susie, Thank you. I
Speaker 3: really enjoyed talking to you, and it's always wonderful to
Speaker 3: speak to someone who enjoys.
Speaker 11: What they do.
Speaker 9: Yeah, certainly, dear, I'm really lucky. Thank you guys for
Speaker 9: having me.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Susie Goodman, the executive director of Strauss and Co. How
Speaker 3: she makes her money on The Money Show.
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Speaker 10: African Blockchain Report twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: Well Wall Street Down tonight the US President Donald Trump
Speaker 3: saying he'd impose twenty five percent some goods from Japan
Speaker 3: and South Korea starting at the end of the month,
Speaker 3: starting on the first of August to be precise, and
Speaker 3: that's pushing the Dow Jones down a percent, the NAAZEC
Speaker 3: down point eighty six, sorry, the stick downpoint eighty eight,
Speaker 3: and the S and P five hundred down point eight six.
Speaker 3: You can imagine, of course, the impact that that is
Speaker 3: going to have. We'll find out a little bit more
Speaker 3: about it all tomorrow, which is when we will read
Speaker 3: jo Any, thanks for being with us tonight, you with
Speaker 3: the Money Show. It's eight o'clock