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
352 – 372

Flash Briefing: Brexit, Ghosn, Huawei, EFF and Majestic

Three stories dominate the global headlines this morning: From London, Brexit enters another critical phase with agreement having been reached between the UK and the European Union on a 26 page letter of intent and a 585 page Withdrawal Treaty. From Japan, the scandal over one time business icon Carlos…
23 Nov 2018 3 min

Ursel Barnes' Yabonga, the Cape project transforming young lives

Life is full of paradoxes. Among them, that the greatest of those who walk among us are rarely the ones most widely celebrated. At least two would make my top ten of thousands of newsworthy people I’ve met and interviewed in almost 40 years of journalism. A modest German nun,…
9 Nov 2018 17 min

Denis Worrall: Secrets of the top Apartheid-era diplomat

For three years during the watershed period of apartheid, Dr Denis Worrall was the hardline Nationalist leader PW Botha's top diplomat serving as South Africa's ambassador in London. Now 83, Worrall has produced an autobiography called The Independent Factor. The book takes a while to get going, but once into…
7 Nov 2018 22 min

Biznews Global portfolio: After October's 14% wipeout, what now?

With the four year old Biznews Global Share portfolio peaking at an annualised return of 41% in September, hindsight suggests a correction was overdue. But when it arrived, the change in Mr Market's manic phase to one of deep depression came ever so quickly. Four of the portfolio's nine names…
30 Oct 2018 47 min

Long4Life: Brian Joffe second act is a bet on SA's Rama-recovery

It’s exactly 30 years since chartered accountant Brian Joffe created Bidvest, a multinational conglomerate which peaked at a valuation of R160bn before the unbundling of its Foodservice arm. With that done, Joffe left his creation. But soon after leaving Bidvest he embarked on a second act called Long4Life. Investors loved…
25 Oct 2018 22 min

Reviving memory of SA WW2 hero and activist that Nats wrote out of history

It’s over a decade since David Rattray was murdered at his famous Fugitives Drift Lodge. Historian Rattray was a masterful storyteller whose tales of the 1879 Anglo Zulu War, and particularly the historic battles of Isandlwana and Rorkes Drift, built him a global following that attracted packed houses, especially in…
21 Oct 2018 26 min

VBS: A sickening Third World Ponzi scheme fuelled by politicians

Uncovering of the VBS scandal is a marvellous example of how the sophisticated, first world side of South Africa’s economy can be practically applied to the benefit of the entire nation. The plundering of a small mutual bank created in the Apartheid’s Venda homeland, was very third world in its…
16 Oct 2018 24 min

Biographer Anthony Butler: Decoding enigma that is Cyril Ramaphosa

Biographies account for at least half the books I own, a legacy of long held fascination for learning about people, a subject to which I devote a good chunk of my leisure time. Latest investment was in a 413 page masterpiece by Anthony Butler - his superb biography on South…
14 Oct 2018 24 min

Prologue to a Crash: Nene on why he resisted Zuma's nuclear folly

Listening to yesterday’s testimony by South African finance minister Nhlanhla Nene was riveting. It also forces the rational mind to ponder where the country would be if this modest man from rural KwaZulu Natal hadn’t stood up against the financial wrecking of former president Jacob Zuma and his cronies. The…
4 Oct 2018 24 min

Adrian Lackay: How Tom Moyane used lawyers, media to capture SARS

When future historians chronicle the beacons of resistance during South Africa’s destructive Zupta era, they are sure to be surprised by how much extraordinary courage was displayed by seemingly ordinary people. Adrian Lackay is one of the most obvious examples. Our paths first crossed more than a dozen years ago…
1 Oct 2018 20 min

Unpacking unintended consequences of Elon Musk's $7bn Tesla tweet

It’s been an insane six weeks for South African-born-and-bred super entrepreneur Elon Musk. At about two o clock in the afternoon on Tuesday 7th August, while he was on an aeroplane, the boy from Pretoria launched one of the most expensive tweets of all time. Musk’s assertion that he would…
25 Sep 2018 22 min

Next week 10% tariff, next year 25% - Trump's trade war gets real

Most analysts had discounted the prospect of a trade war between Donald Trump’s America and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. Even when high level talks broke down in May, Trump’s threats were interpreted a massive bluff in a high stakes poker game. He believed China would back down, make the…
19 Sep 2018 13 min

Peter Hain on Mandela, Ramaphosa and white South Africans

It’s always special to visit with Peter Hain, the anti-apartheid icon who had a highly successful half century in British politics. Last time I watched him deliver a killer speech in the House of Lords which smashed any hopes the Guptas had of slinking away into the shadows. This time…
13 Sep 2018 27 min

Bill Browder, Putin's #1 enemy, warns SA: Recoil from Russia

I was first exposed to Bill Browder in 2006, at a hedge fund conference at Nice in the south of France. He was one of the star attractions, his Russia-focused Hermitage Fund, hailed as the best performing money fund in the world. Confident, brash, outspoken, Browder was riding a wave…
6 Sep 2018 37 min

Meet Chris Steyn author of nation-rocking Lost Boys of Bird Island

I’ve always been a huge fan of my former colleague Chris Steyn, having seen close up how she has always made exposing the truth her only priority, regularly speaking out against the powerful on behalf of those without a voice. Much has happened in the few weeks since the publication…
3 Sep 2018 22 min

Johann Rupert's "aha" moment sparks Reinet's R10bn share buyback

South Africa’s leading businessman, Johann Rupert, has taken the empire inherited from his father to another level. In 1988, just three years after joining his father Anton’s industrial group Rembrandt, Rupert junior created Richemont, today one of the world’s top luxury goods businesses. When Richemont restructured a decade ago, its…
28 Aug 2018 13 min

Elon's $420 a share bubble has burst: Why Tesla isn't going private anytime soon

Earlier this week, Elon Musk’s biggest fan in the investment world urged Tesla’s founder to stop his ideas of taking the company private. Catherine Wood of ARK Invest re-iterated her bullish earlier projections in an open letter on the money manager’s website where she reckons the company’s shares will be…
24 Aug 2018 25 min

Disruptor Rowan Gormley: From Boksburg via Branson to Majestic

When I arrived for our interview at his farm near Bungay in Suffolk, Rowan Gormley, in shorts and a pink golf shirt, was busy watering plants in a small greenhouse. There was no indication from him that a few hours later he’d be hosting 300 people in a marquee set…
21 Aug 2018 30 min
352 – 372