BizNews Rational Radio

Rational Radio

Rational Radio is the weekly business news show hosted by BizNews editor Alec Hogg. It runs for around an hour and features leading commentators from the investment and financial world, including regular guest David Shapiro.
Weekly English South Africa Business News · Investing
421 Episodes
72 – 92

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rational Radio 18 Sept 2019 - The Full Show

Here's the Rational Radio episode of Wednesday 18 September featuring, in order of appearance - Bernie Wolfsdorf, the Durbanite who has been the top US immigration lawyer for seven of the last ten years; Willem Roos, chief executive of the data-only mobile phone company Rain which today launched 5G -…
18 Sep 2019 1 hr 02 min

Rational Radio - the full show: 11 September 2019

Here's the Producer's Cut of the full Rational Radio show hosted by Alec Hogg on Wednesday, 11 September, 2019. In the lineup: Naspers listing in Amsterdam this morning - commentary from Naspers FD Basil Sgourdos who was there when the bell was rung. More on the debate around Discovery allegedly…
11 Sep 2019 1 hr 04 min

BBC goes in-depth with SA anti-apartheid hero Peter Hain

The BBC’s Radio Four is known among the British as the nation’s cerebral option. This well deserved reputation comes from decades of delivering consistently high quality content. What follows is an excellent example of this high standard. Since 2013, historian Peter Hennessy has picked four of his country’s highest profile…
10 Sep 2019 44 min

The Editor’s Desk: The WEF, the Joburg riots, and the President

Alec Hogg spent the week in Cape Town attending the WEF Africa summit, which was disrupted by violent xenophobic riots in Johannesburg and anti-violence protests in Cape Town. In this episode, Alec and Felicity Duncan discuss the WEF meeting and the impact that the social unrest in South Africa had…
7 Sep 2019 19 min

The Editor’s Desk: Steinhoff, the Watsons, & the need for balance

Some of the best stories have a clear villain and a clear hero – that’s why people love Star Wars. But real life is sometimes more like Game of Thrones, with no heroes, no villains, just complex human beings making the decisions that seem best to them. We were reminded…
1 Sep 2019 16 min

Rational Radio: August 28 - the full show

A cracking episode of Rational Radio this week featuring interviews, in order of appearance: Tech entrepreneur Alan Knott-Craig gives us the back story to his well-read piece on why he has no intention of joining those on SA's emigration bus. Independent financial advisor Candice Paine makes her first of what…
28 Aug 2019 1 hr 11 min

The Editor’s Desk: Listen in as Alec & Felicity argue about GG Alcock

This week we have something a little different for you – the opportunity to listen in on a vigorous, off-the-cuff, and unscripted debate between Alec Hogg and Felicity Duncan over the GG Alcock article on the informal economy. It’s a long argument, but an interesting one, as Alec and Felicity…
25 Aug 2019 28 min
72 – 92