Who to poach: telecom peach or banker plum?
Telkom is in need of a finance chief after Tsholofelo Molefe left the partially state-owned operator for competitor MTN.
The question now is how Telkom is going to go about filling this role.
When Molefe was appointed CFO at Telkom in June 2018, she had been the group’s deputy finance chief for two years. A succession plan seems to have been in place at the time.
Molefe’s responsibilities have now been taken over by an acting CFO, pointing to no obvious replacement this time around.
Telkom may look to poach someone from one of its telecoms competitors or look for talent in finance or banking companies.
Mobile operators looking to grow and capitalise on new revenue streams in the world of financial services seem to be filling their ranks with finance executives.
Recently, SA’s largest mobile operator, Vodacom, appointed Raisibe Morathi as its CFO, taking her from Nedbank, where she had been group CFO since 2009.
A former Old Mutual CEO, Ralph Mupita, now MTN’s CEO, is a financial services veteran together with outgoing boss Rob Shuter, himself a former banking executive.
Taking someone from financial services would not be unusual for Telkom. Lunga Siyo, CEO of Telkom Business, joined the telecoms operator from Standard Bank two years ago.
The possibilities are plenty but the continued convergence of telecoms and financial services points to those as the most viable pools of talent for the role.
A platinum status company
Impala Platinum is reaping a dual benefit and is able to tackle large, potential dilutive debt for shareholders as well as reward investors.
The tough yards have been done and won at the Rustenburg mines, which are the single biggest asset in the group. From being the laggards a few years ago and the target of radical surgery, with shaft closures, sales and thousands of job cuts planned, it is now the darling in the group.
The swingeing cuts at Rustenburg were avoided by tough new management under the leadership of Mark Munroe, who has also brought about a much safer working environment at the mines.
Coupled with this fundamental work at the mining operations is the bonanza prices for the platinum group metals (PGMs) produced by Implats, mainly palladium and rhodium.
It has allowed Implats to tackle debt aggressively, with the company implementing an early conversion of its US dollar bond and now aiming to terminate half of its R3.25bn bond due in 2022 at a cost of more than R5.7bn.
By the end of the 2020 financial year in June, Implats had grown its net cash position to R5.7bn from R1.1bn the year before. It repaid R6.7bn of debt.
The strength of the Implats balance sheet at the end of June 2020 must be considered against the R11bn it paid that year for Canada’s North American Palladium, giving it a third and important geographical base outside SA and Zimbabwe.
There is not much left in the way of serious debt on the Implats balance sheet. Shareholders will be one of the major beneficiaries of a financially sound company.