As a Public Relations (PR) / Investor Relations (IR) and B2B communications business in South Africa, we have to constantly be analysing markets trends and commentary to provide our clients with insights into what is happening in the market.
Each month we analyse a variety of different data points to assist our clients and the industry as whole to track what is happening in the market. This includes insights from our own clients as well as topics receiving commentary in industry leading publications.
“Tax payers are part of the solution” – a key comment on the Budget speech
For the first time in 30 years, the tabling of the Budget speech was prevented as parties in the Government of National Unity (GNU) pushed back against the Finance Minister and the decision to increase VAT by 2%.
This was succinctly captured by one of our clients – Ariston Global – in a column for the Business Day where CEO Reginald Pillay says: “Taxpayers are part of the solution not the problem”
Our column for Daily Maverick on investor relations trends
How much do you need to invest in your Investor Relations function if you are looking to raise capital? This is topical for a range of businesses from those listing on the JSE or Cape Town Stock Exchange through to earlier stage businesses looking to raise private capital.
This was a question I looked at in a recent column for Daily Maverick and would welcome your feedback on the article.
A new listing joins the Cape Town Stock Exchange
After losing a couple of its higher profile listings in the second half of 2024, the Cape Town Stock Exchange (CTSE) welcomed a new listing at the end of February in the form of N V Properties.
Established in 1991, N V Properties is a specialised hospitality REIT valued at R3.4bn invested in in 23 hospitality assets across South Africa, two sectional title units in a residential development, one office property in Cape Town and other strategic land holdings across South Africa.
Analysing digital data and website trends
Looking at the Google Trends data for February, the majority of business topics have been focused around the failed Budget speech, a spike in loadshedding (including searches related to Eskom, City Power) and then the story around illegal drilling impacting Gautrain operations.
Perhaps the most interesting trend applicable to our audience relates to the announcement around “Grok 3” which is the Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool announced by X (previously Twitter). The tool is described as “ideal for tasks like news gathering, market tracking and fact-checking.”
The X team unpacks the model in more detail here.
Looking at our own website data, we see that our most popular posts for the month of February 2025 are interviews with:
- The Management team from Alt Capital Partners (From 2023)
- Warren Wheatley the CEO at Altvest Capital where he unpacks recent financial results
Regulatory updates relevant to financial services businesses
The team from Citywire South Africa have published three very interesting articles this month which unpacks key regulatory issues for the Financial Services sector:
- Johann Peens: The Investment Policy Statement – What advisers should know
- Peregrine chair: Treasury issued ‘poor’ CIS tax discussion document
- FSCA publishes study on DeFi market
If you are a financial services business / asset manager, then give them a read.
Upcoming event: Data and Marketing Measurement in 2025
With a number of traditional media platforms in decline, many Marketing Managers are having to scrutinise their options across “Owned”, “Bought” and “Earned” media and work out where they can best secure Return On Investment (ROI)
On 27 February 2025, our team are partnering with Ornico to unpack some of these trends.
If you would like to find out more about this workshop and post-event networking, please e-mail Jade Hurst (jade@decusatio.co.za)
If there are other trends you feel that we have not covered, please feel free to reach out to us.