What’s happening at Nampak that prompted chair André van der Veen to put nearly R50m towards shares in the packaging company?
Through A² Investment Partners, Van der Veen bought 112,081 shares at an average price of R444.25 a share.
He co-founded A² in 2021 as an active investment house targeting deep-discount opportunities and special situations. Before that, he spent years in the Hosken Consolidated Investments (HCI) orbit, first as an executive director, then running HCI-controlled businesses such as KWV, Niveus and eMedia.
Nampak is one of A²’s more consequential activist investments. Van der Veen joined its board in March 2023, when the packaging group was grappling with an overgeared balance sheet, expensive debt and evaporating shareholder confidence. Nampak credited constructive shareholder activism with helping prompt board changes that year. A² later committed to underwrite as much as R100m of Nampak’s R1bn rescue rights issue, and Van der Veen subsequently became chair.
Three years later, the rescue has become a genuine turnaround story, so much so that Van der Veen perhaps feels the time for growth is nigh. By March, net debt excluding leases was down 30% year on year to R2.2bn and finance costs had fallen 33%. Normalised headline earnings rose 9%, despite a poor showing from the diversified division.
Meanwhile, longtime Datatec CEO Jens Montanana sold R14.8m worth of shares, and company secretary Simon Morris sold shares worth R19.4m over three days. The selling began on the same day the company announced a whopping R29 special dividend, funded after its Westcon refinancing and minority investment. Montanana’s 180,000-share sale was tiny relative to his overall exposure. At February year-end, he had a beneficial interest of 44.9-million Datatec shares — 19.01% of the company.
At technology and services group Sebata, Laird Group — owned by the King Family Trust and linked to directors Ross King, Craig King and Tracey Hamill — spend R16.1m on shares. This was a day after Sebata announced yet another delay to its annual results. Those results eventually arrived on August 28, with revenue sharply higher but headline earnings down to 5.29c from 100.7c.
The institutions were moving too. The Public Investment Corporation (PIC) lifted its stake in property group Attacq to 20.089%, after Attacq reported a 9.6% rise in interim distributable income per share and upgraded its full-year growth guidance. It also took its Sappi holding to 20.9%, despite a difficult third quarter in which adjusted ebitda came in at just $53m. Sappi expects a materially stronger fourth quarter.
The PIC trimmed elsewhere, reducing its Mondi stake from 9.81% to 8.96% and Ninety One from 9.18% to 8.93%. Coronation cut its Spar exposure from 10.89% to 9.53% after a bruising interim period in which headline earnings fell 53.9%, while it also reduced its sizeable Bytes Technology holding to 24.76%.
