Notes from my inbox

With winter approaching, South Africans are bracing themselves for another leg-up in what already seems to be an interminable period of rolling blackouts. The impact of higher levels of loadshedding is non-linear and requires investors to carefully reconsider their assumptions when evaluating the outlook for different companies and industries. One of the benefits of employing a large team of analysts focused on conducting proprietary research is that we have the capacity to do this work in detail. Over the past two years, we have conducted nearly 700 individual channel checks on the state of Eskom, the electricity system, embedded generation and energy sector reform. We have also recently concluded detailed conversations with more than 100 listed companies to better understand the impact of loadshedding on their businesses. This month, Nicholas Hops reports back on some of our findings.

The major event in global markets at the start of 2023 was a mini crisis in the global banking industry, with the failure of Silicon Valley Bank in the US followed by a shotgun merger between Credit Suisse and UBS in Europe. Neville Chester unpacks the causes of the crisis and explains why it is highly unlikely that there is any major contagion risk for the South African banking sector. In addition, local banks are likely to be the major beneficiaries of the domestic energy crisis, as both businesses and households are more likely to seek financing to invest in electricity self-generation in response to Eskom’s service delivery failure.

When the going gets tough, many people respond by looking for escape, even if only temporarily. The global travel industry stands ready to meet this need, as Steven Barber reports in his article covering the investment prospects of the major global online travel agents. Interestingly, weaker consumer confidence did not translate into lower leisure travel spending in the recent past. Despite higher inflation, higher interest rates and a more subdued economic outlook, the pent-up demand for a change of scenery and new experiences post the Covid lockdowns meant that travel activity has strongly recovered to pre-lockdown levels.

If you want to read more about the positioning and outlook for your funds, please refer to the latest fund commentaries, or visit the fund centre.

FUND NAME CHANGE

We have changed the name of the Coronation Jibar Plus Fund to the Coronation Defensive Income Fund to make it easier to understand what the portfolio aims to achieve. All other aspects of the Fund, including its investment objective, risk budget, portfolio composition and fee structure, remain unchanged. Defensive Income is a conservative income fund, aiming to produce an annual return that is around 0.5% higher than the Coronation Money Market Fund. While it typically invests in the same money market instruments as the latter fund, it takes slightly more interest rate risk, reflected in its current maturity profile that includes 42% exposure to instruments with a term longer than one year, compared to the Money Market Fund that is currently only invested in instruments that mature within 12 months. Our income fund range is completed by the Coronation Strategic Income Fund, which has a larger risk budget than Defensive Income and aims to deliver an annual return around 2% above that of money market funds over a full interest rate cycle.

FRAUD ALERT – TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT YOURSELF

The incidence of sophisticated ‘spear-phishing’ and ’spoofing’ attacks, often made possible by fraudsters gaining access to clients’ or their advisers’ e-mail login data and/or bank account details, is on the increase. E-mail security experts Mimecast recently reported that these types of attacks jumped globally by more than 60% in 2022, with more than 255 million phishing attempts last year. Clients should ensure that they follow good e-mail security practices, using strong and dedicated passwords that are regularly changed to prevent unauthorised access to their e-mail accounts. It is also safer to transact via our secure online site, where you benefit from the protection of multi-factor authentication, so please register online if you have not already done so. Also, be on the lookout for transaction notifications from Coronation, and if you are uncertain about the validity of any transaction or communication, please verify by phoning us on 0800 22 11 77.