Each month our team analyses industry trends in Public Relations (PR) and investor Communications to assist our clients and industry stakeholders to remain up-to-date with the latest in market developments.
The team analyses data from a variety of different sources including our website traffic and data queries to search traffic and articles in industry publications.
Here’s what we are tracking in January 2025.
Our CEO writes for Daily Maverick:
A highlight for us to start the year was our CEO Marc Ashton writing a well-received opinion piece for the Daily Maverick.
In this piece, Marc shared his experience around working with various leadership teams at the JSE and why he is optimistic about the work they are doing to secure investment in the future.
A pushback against DEI and ESG … could B-BBEE be next?
Globally we have noted an increase in the number of international firms pushing back against trends such as Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity (DEI) and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG).
Leadership and communication teams are gearing themselves up to standardise both their internal and external approaches to these 2 topics.
In South Africa, a similar battle could be brewing between government and the private sector around Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) legislation. In recent weeks law firm Norton Rose Fulbright has led a response to aggressive changes in B-BBEE legislation for the legal sector.
This follows a similar challenge from Sakeliga around B-BBEE changes impacting the property sector and what they term the “third wave of B-BBEE”
These challenges are expected to be a pre-cursor or foundation for changes in the financial services sector codes in the coming year.
Those involved in Investor or Stakeholder Relations are going to have to craft clear communications strategies around these matters in the coming months and years.
A TikTok ban as China and the US clash
Naspers – the largest share on the JSE by market capitalisation – was rocked this week as the US placed China-based investment Tencent on a watchlist of Chinese businesses who could be working with the Chinese military.
This comes at the same time that the US has attempted to either ban access to social networking platform TikTok or force an ownership change if it wishes to continue operating in the US.
Like many other countries, South Africa is having to navigate a multi-polar world where it needs to balance its existing trade relations with investment and trade opportunities coming out of China.
The recent events at Arcelor Mittal South Africa show that this is not an issue that leadership teams can ignore and stakeholder communications will need to address the impact of trading partners on the domestic operating environment.
Google Search Traffic – Decusatio Investor Communications:
The tail-end of December and half of January are a bit of anomaly when analysing search engine traffic as volumes have dropped off as people take a well-deserved break.
Primary keyword search trends on our site for the month of January (to date) are:
- “Investor Communications”
- “Investor Comms”
- “Warren Wheatley” [CEO of JSE-listed Altvest]
- “Alt Capital Partners” [Ben Kodisang led investment firm]
Trending blog post
Our most popular blog post in January 2025 is entitled: “How much should I be investing in business-to-business communications and marketing?”
This would make sense – particularly organisations look at their marketing spend for 2025 and try and align their budgets.
Keep an eye out for our first “Meet The Management” interview of 2025
With limited media and analyst coverage for many of the smaller businesses on the JSE and Cape Town Stock Exchange, we maintain our commitment to help these leadership teams communicate their strategies and investment value propositions.
We do this through our “Meet The Management” series and the first of these in 2025 will be an interview with Warren Wheatley from JSE-listed Altvest who unpacks a new initiative they are launching which will see investors able to invest in venture capital opportunities in China via a D-class shared listed on the JSE.
Keep an eye on our website and social media for this interview.
Make us part of your strategy in 2025:
If you would like to discuss a business-to-business (B2B) media strategy for your business or to position yourself as a thought leader, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.