Brian Kantor – Page 2

Yes – we have a fiscal problem –and can do much about it

An unexpected shortfall in SA government revenues, has provoked something of a fiscal contretemps. R60b less revenue than was estimated in the February Budget has followed an even larger windfall in 2021 linked to the post Covid inflation of metal prices. The recent pull back in metal prices and in mining company profits has seen government revenues falling back sharply from peak growth rates of 25% in late 2021 to zero growth. Government expenditure has stayed on an essentially modest growth tack of about 5% p.a.

Recent Trends in SA National Government Revenues and Expenditure. Growth smoothed Y/Y

Source; SA Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

Less revenue means more borrowing. South African taxpayers are already paying a high price for our highly compromised credit-rating. We pay an extra 2.7% p.a. more than Uncle Sam to borrow US dollars for five years. And a rand denominated RSA five-year bond offers investors 5.5% p.a. more than a US Treasury of the same duration (9.89-4.39) The spread on a ten-year RSA over the US Treasury yield is even higher, over 7.3 % p.a. (11.57-4.25). The reason for such expensive, after expected inflation, borrowing costs and risk spreads is the persistent skepticism of potential investors in SA bonds, local and foreign, about the willingness and consequences of South Africa having to live within the limits of government revenue- heavily constrained as it is expected to be – by very slow growing GDP. The further forward lenders are asked to judge our growth prospects and fiscal policy settings, the wider have been the risk spreads and the higher the cost of issuing long dated debt.

RSA and USA 10 year bond yields and risk spread.

Source; Bloomberg and Investec Wealth and Investment

Yet if it is a crisis in the bond market (not immediately obvious given modest recent interest rate movements) the heavy burdens of raising debt for the SA taxpayer has been a long time in the making. SA national government revenues have consistently lagged government spending- by a per cent or two each year ever since the recession of 2010. And the Covid lockdowns were naturally much harder on revenues than government expenditure. These difference between revenue and expenditure have had to be covered by large extra volumes of additional government borrowing. The share of interest paid by the national government in revenues and expenditure has been rising sharply, doubling since 2014. Interest paid in serving the national debt is now 20% of all national government revenues and about 16% of all expenditures. It is not the kind of expenditure that helps win elections.

SA Government Revenue, Expenditure and Debt

Source; SA Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

Share of Interest Payments in National Government Revenue and Expenditure

Source; SA Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

The share of RSA debt of more than ten years to maturity rose strikingly from 30 to over 70 per cent of all national government debt between 2008 and 2020 – at inevitably much higher rates. The government could immediately relieve part of the burden of high interest rates by reducing the extraordinarily long duration of RSA debt. As indeed it has been doing since 2018.

The extended duration of RSA debt. Long dated debt as share of total debt and average duration of all debt in years (Monthly data)

Source; SA Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

RSA Bond yield differences- by duration of debt

Source; Iress and Investec Wealth and Investment

It was a form of hubris to think that lenders would be willing to take a twenty year and longer view on the fiscal outlook for SA on reasonable terms. The long-term lender is highly exposed to inflation and default through inflation, that the short-term lender largely avoids. The benefits of borrowing long are apparently that it avoids the risks that rolling over short-term debt that may prove to be difficult at inconvenient moments in the money markets. But this makes even less sense when the SA Treasury was building its cash reserves at the Reserve Bank from R70 billion in early 2010 to R183 billion by January 2023.

Managing the interest burden of national debt can play a small part in solving the problem of slow growth for the SA government. Even should government and private spending in real terms remain as deeply and unpopularly constrained as it is likely to be this year and next. Only faster growth can avoid the interest rate trap as interest paid/all government spending should rise further. Absent growth the burden of paying interest, rather than undertaking other forms of spending, is very likely to make a resort to money creation, as an alternative to more borrowing, irresistible. The growth enhancing choices for economic policy should be obvious. There is really no other way.

Who wants to be a billionaire (in rands)?

Peter Bruce has pointed to something in the Stellenbosch water of the late sixties and seventies that produced so many rand billionaires. They would not have been inspired by some professor of economics enthusiastic about the power of free markets telling them to do good for the nation by getting rich. They are much more likely to have been told the opposite. Told why markets will not work nearly well enough and that any faith in entrepreneurial flair would be entirely misplaced. I have yet to meet a Stellenbosch economist who believes that an economy is best left guided by the forces of competition.

And one can perhaps understand why. The interventionist economic policies, long adopted in SA before 1994, clearly helped to completely transform the economic and educational status of the Afrikaner nation, in a generation, both absolutely and comparatively. They might have done even better with freer markets, but this would not have been self-evident. By every measure, the Afrikaner, on average lagged well behind the standards enjoyed by the average English speaker in the nineteen thirties. By the sixties they had caught up. Even, as the average incomes of both communities had improved significantly.

Many of the best and brightest Maties sought their futures working for the state and its agencies. The case for ownership by the state of some of the commanding heights of the economy, steel, electricity, railways and ports was taken as a given and not contended. And they were not, with few exceptions, seen as the path to private riches through corrupted procurement and biased tenders to which SOE’s are so conspicuously vulnerable. Nationalism and strong sense of community may have had something to do with this restraint.

Perhaps with Johan Rupert a fellow student, the example of the ineffable Anton Rupert was the inspiration. He who went door to door selling shares in his fledgling enterprise that was to take down a powerful near monopoly of the cigarette market in SA. The billions of the Stellenbosch cohort, like those of the Ruperts, were made in a conventional way. By competing successfully with established businesses for their customers and executing better combined with intelligent financial engineering that is always the leveraged and risky path to great wealth. Taking the opportunity provided by contestable markets is characteristic of successful, dynamic economies.

Peter Bruce is quite wrong to assert (Business Day July 27^th) That Stellies route to billions is gone — and it’s undesirable. Apartheid-era billionaires can’t be reproduced in today’s democratic conditions.

It would be highly desirable were the South African economy to produce a few more billionaires in a similar old-fashioned way. By taking on established interests, winning market share and reviving businesses that have lost their way and are now valued at far below what can be regarded as their replacement cost. With the help of value adding, better designed financial structures and appropriate incentives for managers based on what really matters, return on all capital employed. It seems to me the opportunity to acquire great wealth in rands and dollars is as open, perhaps more open than it has ever been given current market pessimism.

The aspirant billionaire will not have to rob the taxpayer to get rich – though it is still unfortunately the most obvious route. Yet more than a few new billionaires are hard at work proving my point that Bruce may not have noticed from his rural retreat.

Though admittedly a billion rand today is a lower target, worth a lot less than a billion in 2000 – about 35% as much, after SA inflation. To compare purchasing power in US dollars, you might do as the IMF does – divide billions of rands by 7 not 19 to convert SA GDP into purchasing power dollar equivalents. If the rand just compensated for differences in SA and US inflation since 2000, a dollar would cost R13.5 and a billion rand would buy the equivalent of USD74m – more than nickels and dimes.

The exchange value of the Rand (USD/ZAR) and its purchasing power equivalent

Building Brics – opportunity beckons

The group of countries that will make up the enlarged BRICS, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Suadi Arabia and the UAE have little in common other than a deep suspicion of the motives of the US and its close allies. A state of mind also shared by left wing opinion everywhere including in the US itself. If the unlikely combination of kingdoms, autocracies and genuine democracies is to become more than a another talking shop with an anti-West bias, then it should take an important lesson from the economic development of the US and Europe.

What has been of great benefit to the US and to Europe, since it established a common European market and Euro are their highly significant common currency areas. The same money is used everywhere in the US and Europe as a medium of exchange and a unit of account. Thus unpredictable rates of exchange when buying or selling goods and services across frontiers are avoided, as are the direct costs of converting one currency into another- usually converting US dollars -into the domestic money.

Trade and financial flows between the states of the US and now of Europe is greatly encouraged by what is a fixed exchange rate regime within a common market, also free of protective of domestic industry tariffs or discrimination against foreign suppliers, by regulation. As it does incidentally when transactions of one kind or another take place within any country. The important trade between Gauteng and the Western Cape for example is facilitated by prices set in the rand common to both.

In the nineteenth century when which international trade and finance first flourished and economies came to benefit from wider markets for their goods and labour, and the ability to realise productivity and income enhancing economies of scale, currencies were mostly linked by fixed rates of exchange. The link was the ability to convert the different monies, if necessary, into gold at a fixed rate. And the issuers of different monies made sure to maintain convertibility by protecting their balance of payments through adjusting domestic interest rates. If gold generally flowed out interest rates could be raised to conserve and attract gold reserves and vice versa. Provided the commitment to currency convertibility was fully credible, the extra interest received would balance the payments by attracting or retaining capital.

A modified fixed exchange rate system was re-established after the second world war with the US dollar as the reserve currency- but dollars that could be converted into gold at the request of other central banks. This commitment was abandoned unilaterally by the US in 1971 and market determined exchange rates, with the still dominant US dollar, became the norm. Highly variable rather than predictably fixed exchange rates have become the unsatisfactory order of the day. The rates of exchange of other currencies with the dollar, both in money of the day terms and when adjusted for differences in inflation of different currencies have varied very significantly – and unpredictably- damaging volumes of international trade and real investments.

US Dollar Exchange Rate Index. Market Determined and Inflation Adjusted

Source; Bloomberg, Federal Reserve Bank of St.Louis and Investec Wealth and Investment

It has not been a case of exchange rate moves levelling the playing field for traders in goods and services- so maintaining purchasing power parity in the face of differences in inflation rates across trading partners. Rather the exchange rates have adjusted to equilibrate independent flows of capital – large and reversible flows – in search of better risk adjusted rates of return- to which inflation then responds. Weaker exchange rates lead to more inflation and vice versa. Without stable exchange rates, controlling inflation in the face of capital withdrawals and a suddenly weaker exchange rate with the US dollar can become a severe interest rate burden on the domestic economy – as South Africa demonstrates.

The enlarged BRICS could establish fixed exchange rates between each other to promote trade and investment. They might usefully adopt a Chinese standard- that is offer convertibility of their own currencies into Renminbi at fixed rates. And rely on the Bank of China to manage the float of the crucial rate of exchange of Renminbi into US dollars, as it now does.

Some Identity Economics

There is a certain balance of payments (BOP) outcome. That the dollar payments and dollar receipts in the currency market will strictly balance over any period- an hour, day quarter or year. The exchange rate and interest rates will continuously adjust to make it so- to equalize supply and demand for dollars and other currencies traded. And it is a very good idea for the authorities not to intervene in or attempt to influence this market determined exchange rate with interest rate adjustments. Or to directly control demands for or supplies of foreign currencies to achieve a temporarily better, perhaps less inflationary rate of exchange. A shadow market will emerge to siphon off undervalued dollars, leading to an official scarcity of dollars. Making it very difficult to do normal helpful income enhancing business across the frontiers and discouraging to foreign investment so important to any economy. As MTN knows only to well from its experience in Nigeria.

Another BOP relationship will also always hold. The current account of the BOP- that measures payments and receipts for imports, exports and the flows of dividends and interest paid or received by South Africans, will always be matched equally and oppositely by what are measured as flows of capital over the exchanges. A current account deficit will always be matched by a capital account surplus of the same amount and vice versa. There is no cause-and-effect relationship implied by this identity. The current account does not determine the capital flows – any more than the capital flows determine net flows of foreign trade, interest, and dividend payments. It is an accounting identity.

The capital and current accounts- an identity, identified.

Source; SA Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

Over most years the current account of the SA balance of payments has been in deficit. Exports of goods and services almost always exceed imports – generating a consistently positive balance of trade (BOT) While the deficit on what might be described as the asset service account, dividends and interest payments, almost always exceeds dividend and interest received by enough to exceed the positive BOT. The interest and dividend yields on SA liabilities much exceeds the dividend and interest yield on SA assets held abroad. But between 2020 and 2022 South Africa ran current account surpluses and exported capital on a significant scale. So much so that the market value of SA assets held offshore now exceeds that of the market value of foreign owned assets in SA. This was not good for the South African economy.

There is a National Income Accounting Identity to help make the point. The current account deficit also equates to the difference between Aggregate Incomes that are equal to Aggregate Output (GDP) and Total Expenditure on final goods and services (GDE) It is also by definition the difference between Gross Savings and Gross Capex. Post Covid, Gross Savings, almost all in the form of cash retained by the corporate sector, held up better than Capex and capital – from a capital starved economy – flowed out.

South Africa, Gross Savings and Capital Formation – Ratio to GDP – Annual Data, Current Prices

Source; SA Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

South African Non-Financial Corporations; Cash from Operations Retained and Net Lending (+) or Borrowing (-) Annual Data

Source; SA Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

South Africa; Gross Savings and the Composition of Capital Expenditure by Private and Publicly Owned Corporations

Source; SA Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

South Africa; Inflows and Outflows of Capital; Direct and Portfolio Investment. Quarterly 2022-2023

Source; SA Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

All Capital Flows to and from South Africa; Quarterly Data (2022.1 2023.1)

Source; SA Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

SA; Total Foreign Assets and Liabilities; Direct and Portfolio Investments and Yield

Source; SA Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

SA Foreign Investment Income (Dividends + Interest) Annual Data

Source; SA Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

South Africa; Gross Savings Annual Data (R millions)

Source; SA Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

Both the ratio of Gross Savings – and Capex to GDP can be regarded as unsatisfactorily low in SA. The opportunity to raise the savings rate seems limited, given low average incomes. However, the opportunity to raise the rate of capex to GDP and to attract foreign capital to fund income growth encouraging capex and the accompanying larger current account deficits is always open. SA must be able to offer faster growth and the accompanying higher expected returns, to attract more foreign capital and to retain a greater share of domestic savings.

Supply side reforms are urgently needed for the SA economy. We all know what they are. Demand will keep up with supply automatically. Extra Supply – extra incomes earned producing more goods and services- creates its own demands. Yet until the economy can deliver more growth and better returns, the best we can do with our savings is to invest them abroad. (including buying shares of companies listed on the JSE that do almost all of their business outside the SA economy) Without such opportunities, the pension and retirement funds, upon which we depend for our future income, would be in a truly parlous state.

A response to an op-ed by John Cochrane

I wrote as following in a letter to the Wall Street Journal in response to an op-ed piece by John Cochrane a formidable youngish economist very much in the Chicago School tradition – where he was a professor. He is now a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. You can follow his blog Blog: http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/

Incidentally I have not yet had any acknowledgment from the WSJ – nor do I expect them to publish my letter.

Here is an answer to Cochrane’s (WSJ, August 1st ) question – … does money alone drive inflation? Money (mostly) in the form of deposits in banks held by households and by firms, on behalf of their shareholders, is clearly an asset of the depositor and a component of their wealth. Because the deposit liabilities issued by the shareholders of banks are not expected to be repaid (net wealth goes up with bank deposits because they are expected to grow with the economy and the demand for deposits and will not have to be repaid or be expected to be repaid). Similarly as Cochrane posits, government bonds, or any paper issued by a government, that are never expected to be repaid by taxpayers, are another component of wealth. An excess supply of net money (deposits) or an excess supply of net bonds- over and above the willingness of wealth owners (savers) to hold those assets –would lead to an increase in the demand for other assets and goods and services- and so generally higher prices for goods, services and other assets as portfolios are adjusted to excess holding of money or bonds. That is lead to inflation.

But where could the excess supplies of money and or bonds come from? As Cochrane indicates only and always from a fiscally undisciplined government. A fiscal theory of inflation is essential in explaining all inflations everywhere. It is hardly an original concept.

A fiscally constrained government can call on its central bank and its private banks to fund all the bonds it wishes to issue. The central bank most simply might directly fund the government by buying its additional paper and crediting the government’s deposit account with it. Which, as the Treasury deposits with the central bank run down as the government spends more, would increase the cash reserves of the banks. And their ability and perhaps willingness to lend more- including to the government. And if extra bank lending ensued by banks flush with extra cash, the supply of bank deposits would increase by a multiple of the additional cash deposits injected into the system.

Or the central bank could at its initiative supply (lend) extra cash to the banks so that they may be willing to fund the government with the same influence on the supply of bank deposits as the government spends more. And if the increase in the supply of deposits – bank liabilities and of government paper – bank assets – exceeded the willingness of the public to add to their deposits or bonds – inflation would follow. The deposit liabilities of the banks and their loans to government (bonds) would be increasing at a similar rate. The banks, perhaps more than a wider set of financial institutions, would be holding many of the extra bonds issued by governments- particularly in many countries mostly without a well-developed bond market but very vulnerable to fiscal difficulties and high rates of inflation. Inflation is not an American invention.

Inflation is explained by the inter- actions of governments, banks and the wealth owning public. The exchange of a hugely increased supply of extra deposits held by US banks with the Fed (QE) (cash) for extra private or publicly issued securities after 2010 was restrained – it was understandably not a risk loving lending encouraging time for the US banks after the GFC. The money multiplier (M2/Cash Reserves) collapsed – and the supply of deposits grew slowly and more or less in line with the demand for extra deposits issued by the banks, so avoiding much inflation. But not incidentally of share or real estate prices that were on a tear. Predicting inflation will always demand a close watch of fiscal policy – of the supply of and demand for government bonds in wealth portfolios – and of the behavior of banks- central and private. It will always be complicated.

Buying back shares for good and sometimes regrettable reasons

The case for a company buying back its own shares is clear enough. If the shareholders can expect to earn more from the cash they could receive for their shares than the company can expect to earn re-investing the cash on their behalf, the excess cash is best paid away.

Growing companies have very good use for the free cash flows they generate from profitable operations. That is to invest the cash in additional projects undertaken by the company that can be expected by managers to return more than the true cost of the cash. This cost, the opportunity cost of this cash, is the return to be expected by shareholders when investing in other companies. Such expected returns, a compound of share price gains and cash returned, are often described as the cost of capital. And firms can hope to add wealth for their shareholders when the internal rate of return realized by the company from its investment decisions exceeds the required returns of shareholders.

All firms, the great and not so good, will be valued to provide an expected market competing rate of return for their shareholders. Those companies expected to become even more profitable become more expensive and the share prices of the also rans decline to provide comparable returns. How then can a buyback programme add to the share market value of a company? Perhaps all other considerations remaining the same- including the state of the share market, the share price should improve in proportion to the reduced number of shares in issue. But far more important could be the signaling effect of the buy backs. Giving cash back to shareholders, especially when it comes as a surprise, will indicate that the managers of the company are more likely to take their capital allocating responsibilities to shareholders seriously.

The case of Reinet (RNI) the investment holding company closely controlled by Mr. Johann Rupert is apposite. Mr. Rupert believes the significant value of the shares bought back by Reinet have been “cheap” because they cost less than their book value or net asset value (NAV) Yet the market value of Reinet still stands at a discount to the value of its different parts and may continue to do so. Firstly, shareholders will discount the share price for the considerable fees and costs levied on them by management. Secondly, they may believe the unlisted assets of Reinet may be generously valued in the books of RNI, so further reducing the sum of parts valuation suggested by the company and reducing the value gap between true adjusted NAV and the market value of the holding company. Finally, the market price of RNI has been reduced because the returns realized by the investment programme of RNI may not be expected to beat their cost of capital and will remain a drag on profits and return on capital. Therefore the value of the holding company shares is written down – to provide market competing, cost of capital equaling, expected returns- at lower initial share prices. And realizing a difference between the NAV reported by the holding company (its sum of parts) and the market value of the company – share price multiplied by the number of shares in issue (net of the shares bought back)

Yet for all that, the shares bought back may prove to be cheap should Reinet further surprise the market with further improvements in its ability to allocate capital. And the gap between NAV and MV could narrow further because the value of its listed assets decline. Indeed, shareholders should be particularly grateful for the recent performance of RNI when compared to the value of its holding in British American Tobacco (BTI) its largest listed investment. RNI has outperformed BTI by 50% this year. Unbundling its BTI shares – an act normally very helpful in adding value for shareholders because it eliminates a holding company discount attached to such assets- would have done shareholders in RNI no favours at all this year.

Fig.1; Reinet (RNI) Vs British American Tobacco (BTI) Daily Data (January 2020=100)

Source; Iress and Investec Wealth and Investment

The recent trends in flows of capital out of and into businesses operating in SA are shown below. It may be seen that almost all the gross savings of South Africans consist of cash retained by the corporate sector, including the publicly owned corporations. (see figure 2) Though their operating surpluses and retained cash have been in sharp recent decline for want of operational capabilities and revenues rising more slowly than rapidly increasing operational costs. Their capital expenditure programmes have suffered accordingly as may be seen in figure 3. The savings of the household sector consist mostly of contributions to pension and retirement funds and the repayment of mortgages out of after-tax incomes. But these savings are mostly offset by the additional borrowings of households to fund homes, cars, and other durable consumer goods. The general government sector has become a significant dissaver with government consumption expenditure exceeding revenues plus government spending on the infrastructure. It may be noticed that the non-financial corporations in South Africa have not only undertaken less capital expenditure with the cash at their disposal- they have also become large net lenders- rather than marginal borrowers- in recent years. (see figure 5)

Fig.2; South Africa; Gross Savings Annual Data (R millions)

Source; South African Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

Fig.3; South Africa; Gross Savings and the Composition of Capital Expenditure by Private and Publicly Owned Corporations

Source; South African Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

In recent years, during and post the Covid lock downs, total gross saving has come to exceed capital; formation providing for a net outflow of capital from South Africa. Rather a lender than a borrower might be the Shakespearean recipe, but the problem is that both gross savings and capex in South Africa commands a comparably small share of GDP as shown below. South Africans save too little it may be said for want of income to do so. But they invest too little in plant and equipment and the infrastructure that would promote the growth in incomes, consumption and savings. The source of capital exported is that the gross savings rate held up while the ratio of capex to GDP fell away significantly.

Fig.4; South Africa, Gross Savings and Capital Formation – Ratio to GDP – Annual Data, Current Prices

Source; South African Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

Fig. 5; South African Non-Financial Corporations; Cash from Operations Retained and Net Lending (+) or Borrowing(-) Annual Data

Source; South African Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

The reason many SA companies are buying back shares on an increasing scale is the general lack of opportunities they have had to invest locally with the cash at their disposal. And the cash received has been invested offshore rather than onshore on an increasing scale. For want of growth in the demand for their goods and services for all the obvious reasons. As a result the aggregate of the value of South African assets held abroad at march 2023 exceeded those of the foreign liabilities of South Africans, at current market valuations, by R1,699 billion. Total foreign assets were valued at approximately 9.5 trillion rand.

Fig 6; South Africa; Inflows and Outflows of Capital; Direct and Portfolio Investment. Quarterly Flows 2022.1 – 2023.1[i]

Source; South African Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

Fig.7; All Capital Flows to and from South Africa; Quarterly Data (2022.1 2023.1)

Source; South African Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

The reluctance to invest in SA makes realizing faster growth ever more difficult. That the cash released to pension funds and their like is increasingly being invested in the growth companies of the world, rather than in SA business, is the burden of a poorly performing economy that South Africans have to bear. Rather a borrower than a lender be- if the funds raised can be invested in a long runway of cost of capital beating projects. Faster growth in the economy would lead the inflows of capital and restrain the outflows of capital required to fund a significant increase in the ratio of capital expenditure to GDP and a highly desirable excess of capex over gross savings.

[i] The investments are defined as direct when the flows are undertaken by shareholders with more than 10% of the company undertaking the transactions. And as portfolio flows when the shareholder has less than 10%. Much of the economic activities of directly owned foreign companies in South Africa, including their cash retained and dividends paid to head office will be regarded as direct investment. For example, describing the activities of a foreign owned Nestle or Daimler Benz in SA.

No room at the till. Towards a note less economy.

Starbucks has a prominent notice. Responsibly Cashless. It might have read better or more honestly as profitably cashless. Avoiding the costs and dangers of handling and transporting cash and the associated bank charges – including the likelihood of cash not making it to the till in the first instance – will surely be in the owner’s interest and justifiably so. On the proviso that the sales lost would not be at all significant as affluent and tech savvy customers tender their telephones. It is not a conclusion the owner manager of a small stand-alone enterprise in control of what goes in or out of the cash register will come to. For them cash is still king.

Starbucks and other cash refusers are probably within its rights refusing legal tender. Only the notes and coins issued by the Reserve Bank qualify as legal tender in SA – money that cannot be refused in proposed settlement of a debt. But presumably can be rejected when offered in exchange for a good or service. SARS would probably approve of a cashless society for obvious income monitoring purposes. The Reserve Bank might, were it a private business, have mixed feelings about reducing the demand for a most valuable monopoly. It pays no interest on the notes it issues and earns interest on the assets the note liabilities help fund. In 2004 the note issue funded 40% of the Assets on the Reserve Bank. That share is now down to 15%. It was 20% before Covid.

Clearly notes, have lost ground to the digital equivalent- a transfer made and received via a banking account. A trend that becomes conspicuous after the Covid lockdowns. Since then, the transmission and cheque accounts at SA banks have grown very strongly from R790 billion in early 2020 to nearly 1.1 trillion today- or by about a quarter. By contrast the notes issued by the Reserve Bank since have increased only marginally – by R20b – with most of the extra cash issued being held by the public. The private banks have managed to reduce their holdings of non-interest bearing cash in their vaults and ATM’s. By closing branches and ATM’s and retrenchments. Replacing notes with digits- have been a cost saving response. A central bank replacing paper notes with a digital alternative could be an alternative. But it would be very threatening to the deposit base of the private banks and their survival prospects.

South Africa; Money Supply Trends.

Source; SA Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

The Banks in SA have however dramatically increased their demands for an alternative form of cash- deposits with the Reserve Bank. They now earn interest on these deposits. What used to be significant interest charged to the banks when they consistently borrowed cash from the SARB – to satisfy the cash reserve requirements set by the SARB – at the Repo rate- has now become interest to be earned on deposits held with the SARB. These deposits have grown by R100bilion since 2020 while cash borrowed from the SARB has fallen away almost completely from an earlier average of about R50 billion a month.

SA Banks – demand for and supply of cash reserves since Covid

Source; SA Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

The SARB, following the Fed, regards the interest it pays on these deposits as fit for the purpose of preventing banks from converting excess cash into additional lending. Which would lead to increased supplies of money in the form of additional bank deposits. It takes a willing bank lender and a willing bank borrower to power up the supply of cash supplied to the banking system by a central bank into extra deposits The testing time for central banks in a banking world full of cash will come when increased demands for bank credit accompany the improved ability and willingness of the banks to turn excess cash into extra bank lending. Then interest rate settings may not control the demand by banks for cash reserves to sufficiently restrain the conversion of excess cash into additional bank lending, that in turn will lead to extra and possibly excess supplies of money and so extra spending as money is exchanged for goods, services and other assets, that will force prices higher. Clearly not for now the banking state of SA or of the US where the supply of money is in sharp retreat.

The Fed has rescued the Rand

The rand has recovered strongly this month – by about 7% against the US dollar, and has performed similarly Vs the Aussie dollar and an index of EM currencies. The rand had weakened through much of 2023. It weakened by a further 3% when the SARB increased rates unexpectedly sharply by 50 b.p. on May 25th. Since June 1st the ZAR has recovered – as interest rates in SA have fallen away. arply.

The ZAR Vs The USD, the AUD and the EM Currency Index. (Daily Data January 2023=100)

Source; Bloomberg and Investec Wealth and Investment
Long term RSA bond yields have declined significantly and helpfully by between 50 and 70 basis points this month. The Yankee Bond, a five year dollar denominated claim on the RSA, now yields a lower 6.4% p.a. compared to the 7% p.a. offered on June 1st. Moreover, the spread between the RSA dollar bond and a US Treasury of the same duration has narrowed significantly from 3.6% p.a to 2.8% p.a. This interest rate spread provides a very good indicator of the risks of default attached to SA bonds. More important perhaps for the direction of the rand and the economy has been the recent inflection in short-term interest rates. When the SARB raised rates on the 25th May, the money market, as represented by the forward rate agreements of the banks, immediately predicted a further one per cent hike in short rates over the next six months. The SARB is now expected to be much less aggressive. The market is now expecting short rates to rise by a quarter per cent.

RSA Dollar Denominated (5 year Yankee Yield) and the SA Sovereign Risk Premium (Daily Data 2023)

Source; Bloomberg and Investec Wealth and Investment

Why have surprisingly lower short term interest rates helped the rand as surprisingly higher rates clearly weakened the rand last month? There is much more than coincidence at work here. Higher short-term rates – higher overdraft and mortgage rates- combined with the higher prices that follow a weaker rand – are expected to further depress spending in SA and the growth outlook for the economy. The weaker the outlook for the economy, the weaker the growth in incomes before and after taxes, the more government debt is likely to be issued. And the graver becomes the eventual danger a of a debt default. For which still higher interest rate rewards have to be offered to investors to compensate them for the additional risks implied by a deteriorating fiscal condition. These higher interest rates then raise the cost of capital for SA business – making them still less likely to undertake growth encouraging capex.
The Reserve Bank is ill advised to react to exchange rate shocks in ways that further threaten the growth outlook – and can prove counterproductive by weakening the rand that then lead to still higher prices. Interest rate increases make sense when excess spending – excess demand – is putting pressure on prices. Which is not the case for the SA economy today. The right response to exchange rate shocks is to ignore them as their temporary impact on the price level falls away. Absent any additional consistent pressure on prices from the demand side of the economy, over which the SARB will always have strong influence. The notion of self-perpetuating inflationary expectations, as promoted by the Reserve Bank when explaining its interest rate reactions to a weaker rand, is supported neither by evidence nor is it consistent with self-interested economic behaviour. It is poor theory and even poorer practice.
But this leaves open the question- why then have interest rates come down in SA? The answer can be found offshore. The Fed has found good reason not to push its own rates higher. The pause on rate increases in the US became widely expected and was confirmed yesterday gives the SARB even less reason to raise its own interest rates. The Fed by dealing effectively with a surge in inflation (which has not been self-perpetuating) has improved the outlook for interest rates, the SA economy and the rand.

Update on US Inflation – to May 14th 2023.

Both CPI (4.0%) and PPI headline inflation fell more than expected in May. Monthly moves were low – 0.2% for CPI and negative for PPI. The only proviso was the elevated rate 0.4% m-m for core CPI- CPI excluding energy and food. But core has a very large rental weight- over 40% which was up 8% y/y – but rentals are clearly heading lower and core may not be the most useful leading indicator for CPI – PPI- now strongly lower may do much better in predicting CPI.
The Fed paused but member dot plots indicated further increases to come. But the Chairman says the Fed will remain data dependent and my view is that the Fed panic about inflation is over. Because demand pressures on inflation are largely absent- thanks to higher interest rates and negative growth in money supply and bank credit. The global pressure on interest rates in SA is therefore abating. As discussed in my commentary above

US Headline Inflation Y/Y growth in Index

US Inflation over the past three months – % per 3 months annualized. CPI now running at a quarterly rate of 2%. PPI inflation – headline and quarterly- is now negative

Monthly % move in CPI Seasonally Adjusted. Latest April-May 2023=0.12%.

Welcome the overnight sensation. Artificial Intelligence.

Chat GPT has been an overnight sensation in the world of internet dependents – that is most of us. Though as any overnight sensation would attest – it takes a lifetime of sacrifice and investment to become that overnight sensation. As has surely been the case with the application of Generative Artificial Intelligence. Huge investments have been made – are being made – in developing and applying AI. And the great IT firms are leading the way with their impressive operating margins and returns on capital and abundance of cash flow invested in clouds of computers . They profitably supply the indispensable picks and shovels at the frontiers of knowledge.

And much of their heavy R&D is in the form of employment benefits for their army of researchers – increasingly applying AI – to answer the questions their customers and colleagues ask of them- and answer them far more effectively and rapidly. Among the important applications of AI is in the writing of the code that animates software and its development. With AI the applications and adaptations – the answers to the coders – comes much more rapidly. And the R&D is mostly expensed through the income statement and may not appear on the balance sheet. But will attract great value from the investors who determine the share price of the IT giants who dominate the market value of the S&P 500. Understandably so given the promise of AI. Perhaps the most important question shareholders should now be asking their managers is how are you adapting to AI?

It is estimated that a fifth of the time of office workers is spent answering enquiries of one kind an another. Imagine AI as that true expert on the customer or the internal functions and operations of your company always sitting beside you and your laptop, and comfortably speaking and understanding your language. You will have clearer answers and immediate answers to the questions. Better still the expert may help you ask better more imaginative and important questions- the answers to which will follow. It is asking the right questions that lead advances in science. Humans will be needed for that.

McKinsey has attempted to measure the potential of AI from the bottom up so to speak. By examining in detail how AI is now and could be adopted in the workplace. They have come up with very imposing estimates of extra GDP and of faster rates of change of output and productivity. Which is output volumes divided by numbers of work hours producing them. To quote Bloomberg on the McKinsey study “ Whole swathes of business activity, from sales and marketing to customer operations, are set to become more embedded in software — with potential economic benefits of as much as $4.4-trillion, about 4.4% of the world economy’s output — according to the study by McKinsey’s research arm…….Depending on how the technology is adopted and implemented, productivity could increase 0.1%-0.6% over the next 20 years, it found….”

A follow up question is worth asking. How well will the growth in productivity show up in the numbers we use to measure output and productivity and its growth? One of the puzzles economists have been wrestling with for many years is the apparently persistently slow growth in productivity recorded over many years despite conspicuous automation and labour saving. Are we entering a new phase of productivity improvements – almost certainly – but to recognize them we will need superior techniques to measure them.

We measure the value rather than the volume of production. Revenues recorded are prices charged in money of the day, multiplied by the quantity of goods and service supplied- easier to measure in mines, farms and factories than in the increasingly predominant service sector of a modern economy that sells a service the volume of which may not be obvious. For example how does one judge the quality of a report produced by an analyst today- enhanced by abundant data and powerful software and increasingly by AI? Not surely by the number of words written. Furthermore an enhanced customer service, better advice more rapidly provided, as for example, provided by a call centre, now armed with AI, will not be usually be directly charged for. The improved benefits it provides will come with a single charge for the good or service supported by a call centre- a laptop or cell phone for example. Or the fee charged by a customer relationship manager- a financial advisor perhaps, based upon assets being managed. A higher price or fee perhaps charged for the good or service bundled with the call centre or advisor would not necessarily mean more inflation. But rather represent a higher payment for an improved good or service.

To calculate output (GDP) and incomes or the values added we compare firm revenues today with revenues one or ten years ago, when prices observed were generally lower- given inflation. To make comparisons of real output and income and their growth over time, the value of all the goods or services supplied, must be adjusted for inflation to estimate the volume of goods or services produced. To estimate the real volume of goods or services produced or incomes generated over time. Most important prices have also to be adjusted for the changes in the quality of the of the goods and services supplied. We will not just be comparing the price of an aspirins with an aspirin which may well have increased over time. But rather comparing the prices charged for ever more accurately targeted capsules, developed with the aid of AI, and worth more in a real sense. AI is very likely to improve the quality as well as the quantity of goods or services provided.

Improved and lower costs of production could bring a mixture of absolutely lower prices and improved quality. It might mean deflation rather than inflation. How much prices fall in response to increased supplies will depend upon the growth in demand generally. That is on monetary and fiscal policy that could cause prices to rise on average even as economic growth – that is the volume of goods and services provided is growing. But if you underestimate quality gains incorporated into the price of goods and services and overestimate inflation by a per cent or two a year, you will then be underestimating productivity gains and economic growth at the same rate. And then be telling a very different story about economic progress. Perhaps AI will help economists and statisticians adjust more accurately for the changing and improved nature of the goods and services we consume.

Brian Kantor on Harry Frederick Oppenheimer – Classic Business Radio

The HNI- in whose interest?

A depressing reflection of the State of South Africa was the complaint of Richard Friedland, CEO of private health provider, Netcare, about a coming nursing crisis. An aging cohort of nurses, many more of whom will be retiring, is not being replaced for want of government action – ‘…..about which it was warned well in advance and chose to ignore it …” Netcare, he reported “…had been accredited to train more than 3,000 a year; it now trains barely a 10th of that…”

Clearly there is a demand for more nurses and a very large potential supply of aspirant nurses, given the current employment benefits and prospects. Why the government stands in the way of Netcare helping to close the gap between supply and demand of nurses is perhaps not as obvious as it should be?

Let us attempt to round up the usual suspects. The first suspect must be the arguments against private medicine that are made in principle. The case for equal treatment for all, paid for by the taxpayer, is one that ideologues employed in the Department of Health, hold fervently. Helping the nursing and other services a private hospital provides may provide may threaten this vision.

Though even the ideologues appear to concede the case for top up medical benefits paid for by the more prosperous. Perhaps they realistically understand that the better off in their key economic roles are much more likely to take themselves and their contribution to the revenues of government away from SA, for want of a world class and affordable medical service. A benefit we assuredly receive from the private hospitals and independent physicians that they are willing to pay for through a pay as you go system.

For an economy so obviously lacking in human capital, and not only for the capital embodied in the cohort of nurses, who are especially attractive immigrants, the consequences of an uncompetitive medical offering for highly mobile skilled South Africans are truly disastrous for income growth and taxes collected in SA. Upon which any National Health Service must ultimately

depend. Equal and hopelessly inferior is not an attractive prospect even for those who ignore the current realities of our government provided medical services.

It may still be asked why can’t the government, via its own large suite of public hospitals and large budgets, are failing to train more nurses and doctors for that matter? The answer is in the existing budget constraints. Budgets that provide well for those already in government service, provide employment benefits that keep up with and often exceed inflation of living costs, but leave very little over to employ new entrants to government service, of whom there are potentially legions. The private sector does not compete at all well with the public sector in the competition for workers of all skills- taking into account the private medical and pension benefits that the public sector employees draw upon.

But more important in the resistance to private medicine may be the force already prominent in explaining the actions and allocations of budget, commonly taken by state operated agencies in SA. Public hospitals and their procurement practice –definitely not excepted. The taxpayer has been held to ransom by the opportunists who intermediate between the State as payer and the service and goods providers. They have been extracting wealth from the taxpayers on a mind-numbing scale as Zondo our media and the US government has revealed.

The envisaged National Health Service will be a single payer for all the health services provided by the state. The intended budget will be an enormous one and the opportunities to navigate the gaps between the government as payer and the service and goods providers will be many and valuable. That that you can’t do (big) business with the SA government without a bribe or kickback must be regarded as alas, unproven. The evidence, the reality of SA, vitiates the case for a universal health system. But the private interest in such arrangements is a powerful one. That providers of private medicine in SA will have to resist to survive. They must make their case to the voting public- as Netcare has done.

Why hedge using Gold when one can hedge using Gold share Options?

GDI Barr & BS Kantor

In a previous piece (What can help the Rand and the economy? – ZA Economist) we discussed how ever-changing probabilities make Financial Risk so hard to measure and that investment outcomes are dominated by the return received, with any notion of the past risk faced quickly fading from memory. Thus, if a successful share investment has yielded an excellent return, is the happy result either because the shareholder took on extra risk and got lucky , or because the savvy investor knew the share was undervalued and proved to be so, becomes irrelevant.

Knowing the downside, estimating how much of a loss any portfolio or balance sheet can take and survive a potential loss is an essential task for the risk taking investor. Deciding what is a good bet – improving the odds of success by improving expected returns for any presumed risk -or reducing risks of failure for any expected return -makes every good sense.

Holding gold or perhaps more realistically holding a claim on a stock of gold held in some very safe place, has long proved itself as a sensible way to protect wealth against disasters in the form of war or revolution or more prosaically against inflation and their impact on many other ways to conserve wealth. As the dangers of an economic calamity rise, so typically, as will be expected, the price of gold will move higher.

If so, as will a claim on gold bearing rocks in the ground, that will be gradually turned into gold on the surface by a gold mining company. A share in the expected profits of a gold mining company will then also provide very useful insurance against danger. The gold price and the share price will move in the same direction – but given all the potential gold in the ground, and the risks associate with bringing it to the surface – the share price will be far more variable, hence far riskier than the gold on the surface. The recent sharp upward movement in the gold price provides an appropriate example. The gold price has moved up 10% or so in dollars over the last year. If we take the example of the GoldFields (GFI) share price, this has moved up around 160% (a factor of 1.60times the Gold Price movement) over the same period.

But an investor seeking safety owning gold has still a further alternative. That is to buy an option to buy a share in a well traded gold mining company, at a pre-determined future date, at a price agreed to today. The options can be bought or sold at market determined prices until the expiry date of the option, after which that right or option becomes worthless.

Option prices therefore exhibit a still much greater level of variability (or risk) than the underlying metal or share prices . Because of this character they give investors an excellent opportunity to raise the expected return from an exposure to movements in the gold prices , with a much smaller risk of a loss should the gold price move lower. Give the option price volatility – the factor here

. The availability of gold shares and more so options on gold shares give investors, who want to speculate or to hedge a portfolio of gold bullion against a large contrary or unexpected movement in the gold price make for a very efficient vehicle to hedge the exposure while laying out significantly less capital or incurring expenses to improve the expected return- risk trade-off.

Graham- one needs protection against a fall in the gold price and/or the multiplied fall in the value of a share or an option. One hedges the gold bullion price position by selling (shorting) the shares or selling the option- the puts -to hedge the exposure to the share price. It is cheaper to sell the shares and cheaper still to put the shares. I have tried to spell this out but with difficulty as you will see. A portfolio of gold bullion. Gold price down 10% portfolio down 10%. Bullion price down 10% GFI down 100% – 10 times more. A short of how many GFI shares (1% of the portfolio) would give the bullion portfolio protection against a 10% fall in the gold price. A put option on GFI equivalent to 0.2% of the portfolio in gold would presumably protect against a 10% fall in the gold price.

In recent months a short duration Call Option on GFI, has moved up about 500% (a factor of 50 times greater than the move in the gold price) By agreeing to sell the share and more so an option on the share, one will have exposed (expensed) significantly less actual capital for the same hedging effect. Thatis protection against losses should the gold price move lower rather than higher – as was the expectation. If the gold price had fallen 10%, then one would have lost 10% of the portfolio capital if one had held gold coins (a ten percent fall for ten per cent of the portfolio), 1% of the portfolio for a short on the GFI shares but lost only 0.2% of the portfolio capital, if the outlay was in the form of a put on the GFI shares rather than a short. Therefore, one would have been be unambiguously better off to hold the gold share options (puts) (a 50th of the gold bullion loss). Thus for the portfolio manager who is a gold bull and is already committed to holding a large amount of bullion, he can turbo-boost his investment in gold, with little added risk, by making a relatively small purchase, risking relatively little capital on a highly geared Gold share options. The potential gain (retrun on capital invested in the option) will be very large should the gold price move higher- but the potential loss – compared to the losses incurred by investing the same amount of capital in gold or gold shares – should it all turn out badly – will be much smaller. The return- risk trade-off, calculated looking ahead rather than behind, will have been greatly improved.The fact that at any moment in time judged by observing the random daily nature of the gold price, the gold price has as much chance of rising or falling from its current market determined value, means that the gold bulls are always matched by the gold bears – at the market determined price, or share price, or option price on the shares. The profit seekers in a higher gold price– as in any other actively traded asset – will always be matched by the profit seekers – those who are cashing in on their positions, believing the price will go down. And they will be able to do so at a market clearing price that matches the amounts of bullion or share or options bought and sold. The market makers, including the option providers, will match buyers and sellers. They ideally from their perspective will be rewarded with a fee and not be exposed to the highly unpredictable move in the underlying metal or share prices.

Structuring such risk reducing strategies is complicated for the average private investor. But it may be straightforward for banks or others who provide structured products bought by retail investors. Constructs that trade off less upside gain for less downside risk of losses It should be possible to put together a blended product of say 90% gold bullion and 10% Gold share options of appropriate duration. Such a listed financial security registered for trade on the JSE would exhibit high gearing to the gold price upside but for lower risk of losing capital should the gold price move in the wrong direction, which it may well do. Over to the market place.

What can help the Rand and the economy?

Graham Barr and Brian Kantor

16th May 2023

In early 1980 the Rand reached a peak of 1.32 US$ to the Rand; yes, the Rand then bought more than one dollar! This was the time of a very high gold price of $820 per oz. when Russia invaded Afghanistan and WW3 looked like a real possibility. It was but 35 dollars an ounce in 1970. Things have not been as rosy on the exchange rate front since. The exchange rate is currently around 19.2 Rand to the $. This means that in purely nominal terms the Rand is currently 1/25th (against the dollar) of what it was in those heady days of 1980! If the ZAR merely adjusted for differences in SA and US inflation since 2000 the dollar would now cost less than R13. In a relative sense- the ratio of the market to the Purchasing Power Parity was only wider in 2002 when the ZAR was nearly 80% undervalued. At current exchange rates it is about 50% undervalued. Or in other words the rand buys roughly 50% less in NYC than it does in SA as SA visitors will testify. The great deals will now be realised by tourists to SA –until the rand sticker prices in the stores and on the menus are marked higher. See figure 1

Figure1. The USD/ZAR and its PPP equivalent.1 Monthly data to April 2023.

Source; Federal Reserve Bank of St.Louis, Stats SA and Investec Wealth and Investment

In the seventies as the gold price took off- more in USD than ZAR, SA was the largest gold producer in the world and gold mining was hugely lucrative for shareholders in the gold mines and for the SA government who collected much extra revenue from taxes, and royalties paid by the gold mines. Platinum mining was only then getting going and subsequently got a huge boost from the widespread use of catalytic converters in the exhausts of motor vehicles. Coal exports got going after the construction of the huge export terminal at Richard’s Bay, and the rich Sishen iron ore deposit was still to be exploited.

South Africa is now merely the eighth largest producer of gold in the world, producing but a sixth of the gold delivered in 1970. And gold production is now a relatively small part of the South African economy that in the seventies accounted for 60% of all exports from SA and about 16% of GDP. The link between the gold price and the exchange rate

is now correspondingly weak and has done little to save us from facing the second weakest Rand on record and ever higher long-term interest rates.

The strength of the Rand is still much influenced by the state of the commodity-price cycle, as South Africa remains a commodity-based and exporting economy. It is also determined in large part by perceptions of South Africa’s economic future and the associated safety of investing in SA. Foreign and local investors require a return that compensates for the perceived risk of investing in SA- including the risk of rand weakness. These perceived risks influence flows of capital to and from SA and can strongly influence the foreign exchange value of the ZAR, as they have this year. As an emerging market, South African risk generally follows the average emerging market risk, but SA specific risk has recently risen dramatically in the face of income destroying load shedding and more recently for reputation destroying toenadering with the reviled Russians. This year the rand has weakened by about 13% vs the Aussie dollar and 11% Vs the EM basket. Much of the relative weakness occurred in January and February in response to load shedding. With additional exchange and bond market weakness (higher yield spreads) on the 10th May in response to the Russian revelations. (see figures 2,3 and 4)

The ratio of the USD/ZAR exchange rate to the USD/Emerging Market (EM) average provides a useful indicator of SA risk. This ratio indicates that SA is again in economic crisis territory. The hope is that this time is not different- and the USD/EM ratio recovers to something like normal, as it has done after all the other crises that have damaged the ZAR and the SA economy. Relative to an average EM currency the ZAR has never been weaker than it is now. The outlook for the SA economy, judged by this ratio, has never been as bleak as it is now.

Fig.2: Identifying SA specific risks- comparing the behaviour of the USD/ZAR exchange rate to that of a basket of EM currencies. Daily Data 2000=1

Higher ratios indicate relative rand weakness

Source; Bloomberg and Investec Wealth and Investment.

Fig.3; Relative performance in 2023 ; ZAR VS AUD and EM Index; Daily 2023 to 15th May 2023. Higher numbers indicate relative rand weakness.

Fig.4; Rand Weakness, Inflation expected and the RSA Sovereign Risk Premium. 5 year yield spreads. Daily Data 2023 to May 16th 2023.

Source; Bloomberg Investec Wealth and Investment

In response to this exchange rate shock – for reasons specific to SA – the SA rate of inflation is very likely to trend higher, independently of by how much the Reserve Bank raises short-term interest rates to further reduce spending pressures on prices. Yet raising short-term rates is almost certainly negative for growth in incomes and employment of which the SA economy is already so sorely lacking, given load shedding and a general loss of confidence in the competence of the SA government. The forces that have given us this latest exchange rate shock are completely out of the Reserve Bank’s control. The

Governor needs to recognise this and do little additional harm to the economy and its growth prospects- by not reacting to the exchange rate shock.

It seems evident that the surging rand prices for our mineral exports may not help the Rand this time. A working Transnet to ship the metals and goods out the country would help – as even more important would be a consistent supply of electricity. But it is hard to be optimistic about such immediate responses and investors shared this pessimism earlier in the year and well before our damaging Russian connection came to light to add further to relative rand weakness.

Unfortunately, we do seem saddled for now with a weak Rand and a near-term uptick in inflation. Yet the weaker rand is not an unmitigated disaster. Exporters and firms competing with more expensive imports will benefit from higher rand prices for their production. Their extra rand costs of production will lag higher rand revenues until local inflation catches up with the inflation of the rand prices, they will be able to charge on foreign and domestic markets. The window of extra profitability will be supportive of extra output, incomes and employment. And of the rand values of the exporters and global plays (e.g. Richemont or Naspers) listed on the JSE. Sectors of the JSE that face abroad can provide a very good hedge against rand weakness that occurs for SA specific reasons, as they are predictably doing.

The rand cost of petrol and diesel will play an important role in influencing the inflation rate in the months to come. A saving grace for the inflation outlook is that the dollar price of oil and gas has fallen away- by more than the ZAR has weakened against the USD. (see figure 5)

Fig.5; Brent Oil price – per barrel in USD and ZAR

Source; Bloomberg and Investec Wealth and Investment

The biggest danger to the local economy is that the Reserve Bank will raise interest rates further (the money market already expects increases of over 100b.p. in the next few months) The most recent attempt to support the ZAR raising interest rates by 50 b.p. at the last Monetary Policy has been a conspicuous failure. It has not helped, could not support the rand in the circumstances, but has further depressed spending and the growth outlook. And helped push long term interest rates and the cost of capital higher.

The best approach to rand shocks – that have nothing to do with monetary policy settings- is surely to ignore them – and let the inflation work itself out without higher interest rates. One has long hoped that SA had learned the lesson to not interfere with the currency market. Interest rates can have little impact on the ZAR in current circumstances. The best support for the rand will come from faster economic growth that raises incomes and tax revenues for the state.

Long term interest rates in SA are now punishingly higher than they were last week and the rand is now expected to weaken at an even more accelerated rate than was the case a week ago. This is because SA remains at greater risk – given the even more depressed outlook for growth – of not easily balancing its fiscal books. The expectation of even slower growth to follow still higher borrowing costs, as is widely expected, has added to these risks.

The only way out of the mess SA has got itself into is to surprise investors by delivering surprisingly faster growth- even an extra one percent higher GDP would be helpful. The Reserve Bank has a crucial role to play in this by ignoring the exchange rate shock. Eliminating load shedding and delivering more exports are even more important to improve the growth outlook and reduce SA risks.

A shock to the system- and getting over it

The latest shock to the SA currency and bond markets is of a large scale, similar to those of 2001, and of 2008-9, that was linked to the Global Financial Crisis, also to the Zuma-Nenegate shock of 2015-16, and the Covid shock of 2020. This shock is entirely of our own making. It is the punishing result of a failure to keep the lights on and choose our friends more carefully. We can assert this not only by reference to the abruptly higher rand costs of a USD or Euro, but by the poor performance of the ZAR against other emerging market (EM) and commodity currencies. A weakness that was pronounced earlier in the year as load shedding increasingly hurt the growth prospects of the economy and that was accentuated on the news of our arms business with Russia. The ZAR this year to the 24th of May, after a further burst of weakness on the 10th May, is about 10% weaker Vs the Aussie dollar and 12% weaker Vs the JPMorgan Index of EM exchange rates.

Fig.1 Relative performance in 2023 ; ZAR VS AUD and EM Index; Daily 2023 to 24th May 2023. (2023=100) Higher numbers indicate relative rand weakness.

The ZAR compared to a basket of seven EM currencies – the ZAR/EM ratio – has never been weaker than it is now. The ratio very easily identifies the periodic shocks to flows of capital to and from SA since 1995. One can only hope that this time will not be different and that the ZAR bounces back- at least relative to our peers.

Fig.2. Identifying SA specific risks- comparing the behaviour of the USD/ZAR exchange rate to that of a basket of EM currencies. Daily Data 2000=1 to 15th May 2023

Higher ratios indicate relative rand weakness

Source; Bloomberg and Investec Wealth and Investment.

The RSA bond market could not escape similar punishment. Yields on long dated RSA Rand and USD denominated debt rose by about 60 b.p. between the 9th and 15th of May having all tracked higher through much of 2023. The case for investing more in SA plant and equipment has become that much harder to make. And the rand -judged by the wider carry- the difference between interest rates in SA and the USA- is now expected to weaken at an even faster rate- despite recent rand weakness. All bad news for our economy

Fig.3 Interest rate movements in 2023. Daily Data to 24th May

Source; Bloomberg and Investec Wealth and Investment.

The weaker rand is not an unmitigated disaster. Exporters and firms competing with more expensive imports will benefit from higher rand prices. Their extra rand costs of production will lag higher rand revenues and until local inflation catches up with the higher rand prices they will be able to charge on

foreign and domestic markets. The window of extra profitability will be supportive of extra output, incomes and employment. And of the rand values of the exporters and global plays (e.g. Richemont or Naspers or the International Mining Houses) listed on the JSE and who account for more than half its market value. The JSE is not in shock- it is well hedged against SA specific shocks.

How quickly inflation rises in the months to come will depend on the rand price of imported oil. A saving grace for the inflation outlook is that the dollar price of oil has fallen by more than the rand- hence a lower rand price of a barrel of oil.

Fig.4; Brent Oil price – per barrel in USD and ZAR

Source; Bloomberg and Investec Wealth and Investment

The interest rates set by the Reserve Bank will make no difference to the rand or the inflation rate. Hopefully they will react to an exchange rate shock by not reacting to one. And do what little they can not to slow down growth any further.

The Treasury could help –by keeping the peak loading generators on for longer. And pay for the extra diesel or LPG. Every hour of load shedding not only means less income and output generally – it means lower tax collections. Every rand spent on diesel by the public or on replacing Eskom means less tax revenue in proportion to the company and personal income tax rates and the conversion to solar

allowances. Spending taxpayers rands on diesel will pay for itself. And possibly produce the growth surprise that could turn, only can turn around the rand.

Banks are different

Banks are different to other financial intermediaries. They do more than borrow and lend. They manage the payments system without which any modern economy could not function. The payments system cannot be allowed to fail and banks deserve support should their stability come into question. Which, as was apparent in the US recently, cannot be taken for granted.

Banks maintain the payments system by supplying deposits to their clients and transmitting many of them on demand. They bear the operating costs of doing so – which are considerable. They have to remain viable businesses, so they have to cover their operating costs with transactions fees and more importantly by lending long and borrowing short- realizing net interest income, essential to their profits and survival. Banks, competing with each other, are forced to operate with very limited cash reserves. They hold very limited reserves of equity- that is owner’s capital – and are highly leveraged for the same profit seeking purpose. The dangers come with the territory.

A margin of safety for them is to be found in their holdings of other liquid assets, mostly debt issued by the government, with varying maturities and interest rates, that the central bank will almost always repurchase for cash when asked to do so. In SA the cash to demand deposit ratio is less than three percent and the liquid assets to deposits ratio is now equivalent to about 40%.

SA Bank Deposits withdrawable on demand and Cash and Liquid Asset Reserves. January 2023

Source; SA Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

Bankers everywhere must surely be considering attaching a longer notice period to their deposits and to reduce their dependence on transactions accounts – with interest rate incentives to do so. Giving them more time to call for a rescue from the authorities or other banks should their deposits drain away suddenly.

The relationship between the US Fed and its member banks changed in an important way after 2008. To rescue the banking system the Fed injected cash into the financial system on a very large scale through purchases of Government Securities from the banks and their customers in exchange for bank deposits with the Fed. A process of money creation described euphemistically as quantitative easing. (QE) Ever since then US banks have continued to hold large cash reserves despite short phases of quantitative tightening (QT) to reduce the supply of cash as is the case now- or at least before the banks ran into cash withdrawal problems

US Banks Deposits with the Fed

Source; Federal Reserve Bank of St.Louis and Investec Wealth and Investment

The policy determined interest rate is now the rate the Fed offers the banks on deposit rather than the rate charged them for cash borrowed. The SARB decided it too would no longer attempt to keep banks short of cash. SA banks since 2022 can now hold excess cash reserves and earn interest on them. Reserve Bank lending to the banks has fallen away sharply recently.

SA Banks; Actual, Required and Borrowed Cash Reserves.

Source; SA Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

But will central banks be able to exercise good control over the supply of money (mostly bank deposits) and bank credit? The supply of bank deposits and supply of bank credit depends in part on the cash reserves supplied to them by the central bank. More cash supplied by the central bank leads to more bank lending and higher levels of deposits (M3) and vice versa. But this money multiplier (Deposits/Cash Reserves) can now rise or fall depending on how much cash the banks choose to hold, rather than on the extra cash supplied them by a central bank. One bank’s extra lending becomes another bank’s extra deposits. If the banks prefer to hold more cash and lend less, the supply of deposits and the money supply will shrink and vice versa. Therefore, the money supply will tend to grow faster during the booms when demand for bank credit is buoyant, and then grow slower when demands for bank credit is weak- as is now the case in the US – making a recession more likely. Ideally central banks can contain inflation and help smooth the business cycle by controlling the supply of money and credit. The current dispensation for banks with excess cash makes this less likely.

The impact of more equity and less debt for a growth company

Mpact a South African paper and packaging company has recently reported highly satisfactory results. It has a rare attribute for a SA based industrial company. It appears to have very good growth prospects linked to good export prospects for SA agriculture as highlighted in BD on May 2nd.

And Mpact seems very willing to invest in the growth opportunity and to raise capital from internal and external sources to fund the growth opportunities. It speaks of a 20% internal rate of return on these projects which would be well above the 15% p.a. that could be regarded as the opportunity cost of the capital it raises.

But the Mpact story is complicated by its shareholding. Caxton an apparently less than friendly shareholder unwilling to raise its 34.9% stake to the point where it has to make an offer to all other shareholders. It prefers to merge its operations with Mpact, a prospect the Mpact board is actively discouraging.

Caxton however argues that Mpact has raised too much debt for its comfort. It may have in mind using its own cash pile to fund the capex after a merger. It may nevertheless have a generally valid point. Mpact might be better advised to fund its growth raising more additional equity capital and less extra debt. This might not suit Caxton but would be a less risky strategy. And there is not good reason that SA pension funds with their typical 60% equity – 40% debt would not welcome the opportunity to contribute additional equity capital that promises good returns.

It is a strategy to be recommended to any growing company. Any equity capital raised that beats its cost of capital will very likely add value for its shareholders old and new. The value of the firm will increase by more than extra capital raised- adding wealth for shareholders with a smaller (diluted) share of what will have become a larger cake. Dilution can take place for good growth reasons- and not only to save off the bankruptcy – that always comes with too much debt.

The temptation always offered by interest rates below what prospective internal rates of return on capex is to raise debt to improve the return on shareholder’s equity. When the internal rates of return have in fact exceeded the costs of finance, hindsight tells us more debt, would and should have been the obviously preferred source of capital. But in an uncertain world such favourable outcomes cannot be known in advance.

The savings in taxes paid, because interest payments are deducted from taxable income, that is equal in value to the tax rate multiplied by the interest paid, may be presumed to reduce the “weighted average cost of capital’ – and so perhaps reduce the target internal rate of return required to justify an investment decision. I would counsel against such an approach. Expected return on all the capital put to work, however funded, should be the initial critical consideration independent of tax to be paid. If the expected returns are attractive, the appropriate financial structure can then be considered. Debt is not necessarily cheaper than equity – because it is more risky – and the firm may well have to pay up for the financial risk it has taken on, usually when it is least convenient to do so.

When the source of any reported growth in earnings appears to be financial engineering, and is largely debt financed, it should be treated with suspicion by actual or potential investors in the shares of such a company. Returns on all capital invested needs to be greater than the interest rate on debt raised and in addition need to at least meet the returns required by shareholders who have alternative investment opportunities. How best to fund the growth should be a secondary consideration after the favourable return on all capital invested can be assumed with confidence.

MPact should be strongly encouraged by its shareholders and South Africans more generally to realise all the projects that can confidently earn 20% p.a. And raising extra equity rather than only debt capital will help ease their way down their apparently long runway -should the 20% materialise.

Parsing the increase in the Repo- and questioning its wisdom

There was no good reason for the Reserve Bank to have surprised with a 50 basis point increase in its repo rate. There is in fact no good reason at all to subject the beleaguered SA economy to any further increases in interest rates. Given the bank’s own assessment of the state of the economy. To quote the statement of the Monetary Policy Committee of the 30^th March. “Turning to inflation prospects, our current growth forecasts leaves the output gap around zero, implying little positive or negative pressures on inflation from expected growth”. The output gap is the estimated difference between potential growth in the economy (the supply side) and the growth in demand expected. The expectations for both growth in demand and supply are depressingly slow- no more than 1% p.a. over the next two years.. But clearly there are no demand side pressures on the price level.

The Bank’s forecasting model indicates that every 1 per cent shock to the repo rate will reduce GDP growth by 0.17% on an annual basis with the peak impact two or three quarters after the interest rate shock. While inflation is predicted to decline by 0.12% two years after the shock. While these are the estimated impact of higher or lower interest rates, other things equal, other things are very likely to change in highly unpredictable ways. For example exchange rates, or food prices or electricity tariffs or export prices- supply side shocks – over which the Reserve Bank has no control, nor any superior ability to predict. And which are as likely to move higher or lower over the forecast period and therefore should be ignored when setting interest rates. The strong focus of policy attention should be on the demand side of the economy- on the potential output gap over which the Bank does exercise influence. And without excess demand price increases cannot continue in an ever-higher direction- irrespective of recent inflation. Why the Bank would risk even slower growth by imposing still higher short term interest rates is hard to appreciate.

Since its January meeting the Bank, by no means alone, has been surprised by global inflation, by food prices, by rand weakness etc, enough to have taken recent headline inflation rates above what was predicted at earlier meetings. Though the longer term expected trend in headline inflation remains as it was – pointing distinctly lower below the targeted band. Incidentally the core inflation rate that excludes energy and food prices – large supply side shocks – has behaved almost exactly as expected. All further reason to have stood pat.

SA Headline Inflation. Actual and forecast by the Reserve Bank

Source; SA Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

SA Core Inflation. Actual and forecast by the Reserve Bank

Source; SA Reserve Bank and Investec Wealth and Investment

There is perhaps more to the decision to raise interest rates than the usual focus on prices. The MPC statement and the Q&A session after the meeting cast unusual concern about the foreign financing needs of the SA economy. To quote the MPC statement again – “South Africa’s external financing needs are expected to rise. With a sharply lower export commodity price index, stable oil prices and somewhat weaker growth in export volumes, the current account balance is forecast to deteriorate to a deficit of 2.7% of GDP for the next three years. Weaker commodity prices and higher sate-owned enterprise financing needs will put pressure on financing conditions for rand-denominated bonds. Ten-year bond yields currently trade at about 11.2%, despite the expected moderation of inflation over the forecast period”

It therefore appears to me that higher interest rates to attract foreign capital interest rates may have played a decisive role in the MPC decision. The rand and the long end of the bond market did benefit from a wider interest rate spread in a modest way. But such experiments in exchange rate management are surely not to be recommended, given all else that can happen to exchange rates. I thought we have learned (expensively) to leave exchange rates and long-term interest rates to sort out balance of payments flows – and yet still to learn to set interest rates with the domestic economy front of mind.

RSA 10 year bond yields and the USDZAR – before and after the decision to raise the repo rate by 50 b.p.

SVB – the importance of understanding the drivers of market value

The demise of Silicone Valley Bank (SVB) the 15^th largest US bank, with an important systemic role in the roll out of US Tech happened quickly. In less than 24 hours it was all over for shareholders as the regulators took over to prevent banking contagion. By offering insurance not only on the deposits of all denominations of SVB, but effectively on all deposits with US banks, should it be needed.

It was not a run on the banking system – depositors were not lining up to cash in their deposits- as they might have done in primitive times before. They were acting online, transferring their deposits as quickly as they could to their accounts with the banking behemoths JP Morgan, and their like. As the venture capitalists and their many subsidiary companies did with their deposits with SVB,

It was clear what caused the panic withdrawal of deposits from SVB. It was a sudden loss in the share market value of SVB to which the depositors acted as they did. They may not have known what was going on but they took fright. It is the market value of a company and its capital raising potential that protects creditors and this protection had fallen away. For reasons that had everything to do with decisions taken by SVB itself on surely very poor advice, that investors in SVB had recognized as destroying the market value of SVB.

The problem for SVB and other banks was that the fixed interest rate yield on their essentially sound assets had been rising steadily, causing their values to decline, even as the interest rates paid on deposits were edging higher in response to Fed tightening. Accordingly, the net interest income earned by the banks and their earnings per share were in decline. A trend clearly uncomfortable to earnings conscious and presumably earnings growth incentivized managers of SVB.

The advice was to mark the portfolio to market values, and recognize the capital losses on the balance sheet. To raise additional share capital in the market to restore required capital to asset ratios and to invest the capital in higher yielding government and other securities. By so doing improving net interest income and the earnings outlook and the share price.

There was no regulatory compulsion to recognize the losses on their portfolio. The alternative was to have let the assets run off as they became due and to accept the consequent decline in earnings for the next three years or so and the possibly negative reactions of the capital market to a well understood and unavoidable economic reality. There would then have been no need to raise additional capital.

The capital market would surely have been capable of seeing beyond the decline in earnings and focused on the inherent quality of the SVB balance sheet and its potentially durable business model. The problem for SVB was that the capital market clearly did not think that the proposed plans for the balance sheet made good sense and that two billion dollars of extra capital required could be raised on reasonable terms. Doubts that put pressure on the share price that undermined the possibility of raising the additional capital.

The protection in the form of market value for depositors and shareholders in SVB and beyond fell away dramatically and the bank went down. All because of a false belief in managing earnings per share and the failure to recognize how companies are properly appreciated and valued on the share market. Concerns that extend well beyond the short-term prospects for accounting earnings. Adjusting wisely to Covid 19 and its aftermaths has proved difficult enough for the great growth companies with the strong balance sheets. It is even more difficult for banks, with high degrees of leverage, to wisely adjust their balance sheets in such unpredictable circumstances. SVB clearly failed to do so.

The misery of national debt

Published Business Day March 10^th 2023

Makawber’s principles apply to National as well as household budgets. Expenditure less than revenue equals happiness. Expenditure that consistently exceeds income brings misery. Iin the form of ever rising and more expensive levels of debt, the service of which takes an ever-larger share of the revenue collected and of all expenditure. Paying interest and repaying capital maintains your credit rating -more or less- it does not buy votes.

South Africa has been on this spendthrift path, without pause, ever since the Global Financial Crisis. Since fiscal year 2008-09 to date real government expenditure has grown by an average 3.2% p.a. Government revenues have lagged, growing by an average 2% p.a. after inflation. This extra 1.2% of spending makes a large difference to debt levels over time. Real GDP has grown by an immiserating 1.2% p.a. average since 2009.

Government debt net of cash was a manageable R483.2b in 2007/8 and equivalent to 20% of GDP. The net debt this past financial year is nearly ten times higher at R4483b and equivalent to over 67% of GDP. Servicing this debt took 8.8% of all government revenue in 2008-09. This share of revenue grew consistently to 18.8% in Covid year 2021 as revenues collapsed with the lockdowns. This depressing ratio fell back to 17.1% in 2021/22 as the inflationary comeback from Covid brought hundreds of billions of extra unexpected taxes from SA mining companies. A mixed blessing as these companies remained reluctant to invest more in SA and so paid more tax.

Not only did the volume of debt incurred rise, but interest rates both paid by the government and by private borrowers also rose well ahead of inflation to compensate investors in SA government and private debt for the dangerous trajectory of our debt. Such trends could easily be extrapolated into a debt crisis and be expected to do so. That if not corrected could lead to a desperate eventual resort to the central bank as a lender of last resort and its money printing press. That is to a default by inflating away the real value of the debts incurred. A not uncommon event in monetary history of the world.

The 2023-04 Budget has made an essential, praiseworthy attempt to reverse the direction of spending and revenue. Over the next three years all government spending is planned to grow by 8.5%, and more slowly than government revenue which is expected to increase by 10.4%. The extra borrowing, the fiscal deficit would then decline from the current 4.2% of GDP to 3.2% by 2025/06 despite very modest expected growth in GDP. If the plans materialize, the debt to GDP ratio will stabilize in the low 70% range and the debt service ratio will be contained below 20% of all revenues. A path to fiscal sustainability has been opened.

The issue of how well or badly the government spends the money collected or borrowed and then allocated across the spending departments and state sponsored enterprises, and how onerous is the tax regime, clearly influence economic growth. Fiscal responsibility of the kind, hopefully to be demonstrated, almost balancing the books, is vitally necessary for economic stability but is not sufficient to the purpose of faster economic growth. It is the larger task for government to get value for taxpayers income it extracts.

The economic dust seldom settles in South Africa. The Budget was soon overtaken by De Ruyter’s last stand. Yet judged by the muted reactions in the financial markets the Budget did little to change what we pay to raise capital, public and private. RSA 5 year bonds still yield well over 9% p.a. or a very expensive real 5% p.a. after expected inflation of 5.5% p.a. Judged by the difference between RSA and USA Bonds, the rand is still expected to weaken – by a punishing 5% p.a. over the next five years and about 7% a year on average over the next 10 years. SA dollar denominated, 5 year debt, now yields 6.56% p.a. representing a default risk premium of 2.3% p.a. and more than double investors in Mexican debt pay for the same insurance. Clearly the market and the economy need much more convincing that we have permanently changed our ways.

Measures of SA Risk; Daily Data 2022- 2023.

Source; Bloomberg and Investec Wealth and Investment

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?

Nostalgia has its comforts. But looking ahead rather than behind
may be the better New Year resolution. Especially for those with
the responsibility for directing a business enterprise. It is best for
them to move on from the inevitable mistakes they have made in
business or in life. To not throw good money after bad to avoid
embarrassment. Not to not sell off the best divisions to sustain the
underperformers with capital they should better be starved of.
Do as Woolworths did with David Jones – but do it much faster.
And change the seriously erring CEO and the Board members
who supported them sooner rather than later. Furthermore, do not
encumber the strong operating managers with the capital that was
once wasted overpaying for acquisitions. The poor deals and the
waste of shareholders capital were not their mistakes.
Yet they may be doing very well operating the plant and
equipment handed to them and need recognition and
encouragement accordingly. Therefore, the firm should
accurately estimate the current market value of the plant and
equipment they are held responsible for. And reward them when
they achieve returns on this capital that exceeds required returns,
the opportunity cost of the capital employed. The investors who
value the business will, as managers should, look forward and
estimate expected returns based on current market values – and
will add or subtract based on expected not past performance.
The future is for every business and every individual to prepare
for. The technology for dramatically improving the productivity of

capital is available for you and your competitors. If only you or
they knew better how to serve your key stakeholder, the
customer, they will attempt to do so expecting to add market
value for their owners. The future will be theirs that succeed.
Frustrated South African customers of the state-owned
enterprises know that they operate to serve other stakeholders,
not their customers. Other KPI’s are much more important. Most
obviously to serve the interest of their employees or suppliers
without regard for the bottom line. What will the future bring for
this operating model that so clearly fails to deliver to customers?
The obvious solution is to introduce incentives for them based on
the same return on capital criteria that makes private business so
customer friendly. Is this politically possible?
The pace of technology may well be accelerating and its
outcomes ever more uncertain. And a source of ever greater
anxiety to the bosses and their teams. Ours seems a less happy
era. Maybe technology is to blame. Yet there is also a business
imperative to apply technology, 1 to improve the resilience and
reduce the dissonance of the workforce, so enhancing
productivity and competitiveness.
The evidence from working from home, made possible by
improved technology, is very suggestive about what the future of
work may hold. It suggests that the future will be one of fewer
hours worked, including fewer (highly unproductive) hours getting
to and from the workplace. Fewer hours worked because
improved technology enables more output produced and
therefore more income per (fewer) hours worked required to
satisfy the necessities of life and more time to play or bring up the
children. If collaboration at the work-place is valuable – because it

makes the firm more innovative and competitive – the
representative firm may therefore have to pay more, as well as
give more time off, to get key workers to come to the office. And
for those who much prefer to work from home and are therefore
less productive, may well accept lower hourly rewards to do so.
The challenge for all will be to find meaning in life. A strong sense
of vocation, of finding purpose and satisfaction in work for its own
sake, as well as for what it may buy, including time-off will remain
as helpful as ever.