We saw the Oprah effect on the share price of Weight Watchers.  When it was announced on Monday 19 October that she had bought 10% of the company, the share price doubled in a day!  I must say it was interesting to read about it because one of the financial publications I often read, Barrons, had for some while been saying that there is a lot of value in the price of Weight Watchers.  It has come down from a price of $92 to $6 before Oprah bought it, and while it has now doubled to over $13, it obviously has potential for much upward growth.  She bought it on the basis that she said she has used the company’s products and it has worked for her and obviously having someone like her endorsing the company is going to throw it right back into the limelight again, so there may be a lot of room for growth still.  It does illustrate the power of major media players like this to dramatically move a company – and in so doing also make a very tidy profit for herself because the share price of her shares in Weight Watchers went up $60 alone in one day after it was announced.   

I get a number of e-mails from other attorneys’ clients asking me about whether it is true that the Road Accident Fund has a cash flow crisis.  I am surprised to get these e-mails, because it has been well reported in the media and anybody who do a Google search on phrases such as “RAF cash flow crisis” or “Road Accident Fund payment problems” will find a number of media and other articles indicating these issues.  The problems began in about August 2014, although there had some years previously also been issues.  Previously when the Road Accident Fund had these cash flow problems they made monthly payments by instalments in all big cases, paying some of them off over 12 months.  

What happens now is that payments are delayed with payments under R100 000,00 being prioritised by the Road Accident Fund and those settled for more than R1 million being put to the back of queue.  I think that is wrong and that the more seriously injured you are, the more quickly you should be paid.  The very fact that you are getting a big settlement means that your case is more serious than the person who is receiving R30 000,00, and it is a pity that the Road Accident Fund has taken this approach.  I, in fact, have written a number of letters to the Executive Officer of the Road Accident Fund, Dr Eugene Watson, pointing out why I think that this is not the moral or correct approach, but unfortunately it does not appear that the Road Accident Fund wants to consider any other approach.  The reality is that the Road Accident Fund does indeed have cash flow problems and in most cases there is nothing that your attorney will be able to do to get your payment made earlier.  It is easy to say that we can call in the Sheriff of the Court and issue a warrant, but they ignore the fact that hundreds of attorneys have done that, there are thousands of outstanding warrants and they cannot practically actually enforce payment of all of them at the same time because they would exceed the money that the Road Accident Fund has in the bank, or has in assets in any event.  The bottom line is, if you are waiting for a payment from the Road Accident Fund in your case that you do have to be patient and accept that on average, particularly if we are talking about a case that was settled for more than R1 million, you will be looking at about 4 to 8 months before you will receive payment.  

It is a huge weekend for me in terms of my horses this weekend.  Not necessarily huge races – in fact, they are not, but a number of my horses who have not run while returning from injuries have races and others are being put in top class fields for the first time.  In other words, it is a weekend where I am really hoping to see some positive signs from a number of horses. Do You Remember, who came third in the July Handicap in 2013 and has not run since January 2014, will be making her debut in Australia on Saturday.  

Also on Saturday, returning from an injury after 11 months of racing, is Master Sabina.  He ran second in the 2013 Summer Cup and this is going to be his first run after a severe injury, so we hope he pulls through it and does well enough to qualify for this year’s Summer Cup.  He was the second favourite for last year’s Summer Cup when he had to be pulled out of the race and I really thought it was going to be my time to win that race, so that was a huge blow and I just hope that he has recovered well.  Also on Saturday in the Cape, I have an up and coming horse by the name of Baritone running.  He came second in his first race and has won the next three in a row and he is coming up against a lot of good horses and he is carrying more weight than any of them.  If he wins, he will probably be the favourite for the Cape Guineas.  So far, he has not put a foot wrong, he is looking like he really could be something very special and this is his first big test.  If that is not enough, and I really don’t have runners often for many weeks at a time, but this weekend I have four.  I have Masterly running in Port Elizabeth on Sunday.  Masterly did not do well when he was in Johannesburg, but since he got to Port Elizabeth, he has been a breath of fresh air, having now won four races in a row, but once again, for the first time, he is meeting very serious opposition, including some highly rated horses that are travelling from the Cape to race in what is quite an important race in Port Elizabeth, the Algoa Cup which is a Grade 3 race.  They all have different hurdles to overcome and it is not easy for a horse to return to racing after 21 months like Do You Remember, who during that time had to get to Australia via Mauritius, then France and the UK as well as Master Sabina who will obviously be nursing an injury.  I would have the least expectations for Do You Remember who is running over a distance that does not suit her and after such a lengthy break, so the pressure is probably mostly on Master Sabina and Baritone for Saturday.  Either way, it is going to be interesting with my horses running in Melbourne, Australia, Johannesburg, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth on Saturday and Sunday.  The first thing you hope for in racing, and the most important thing, is that they all pull through soundly and do not get injured.

I was interested to read that Playboy magazine, which faces dwindling sales, has now decided to give up nudes.  They will still have women in provocative poses they say, but they will no longer be fully nude.  The reason for that is that everything is available on the Internet and as their Chief Executive says, “You are now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free.  And so, it is just passé at this juncture.”  I don’t personally think it will save them – magazines are all generally losing sales – but it’s interesting to see that one of the original nude magazines has given up on nudity!

Jordan Spieth set one year earning records on the PGA Tour this year.  He won the Tour Championship and apart from that he won two Majors.  Just so that you understand how much money is involved in golf, and how ridiculous by comparison the earnings of cricketers and rugby players in South Africa look, Jordan earned $22 million during the season.  Obviously, he will receive tens of millions more in sponsorships.  No golfer has ever before won such an amount in just one year, and of course the year is not over, so he may, through appearance fees and playing in some other tournaments, still earn more.  To put that in South African terms, and it is hard with our fluctuating currency which is generally on a downward trend, that R308 million was earned in one year from golf.  That is undoubtedly more than the whole Springbok team plus coaches and assistant staff added together.

It is old new now that Hitachi agreed to pay $19 million to settle charges in South Africa relating to the building of two power stations.  Before bidding for a contract, Hitachi sold 25% of one of its divisions to Chancellor House, an ANC investment arm.  

Shortly thereafter, the company obtained certain lucrative contracts to build power stations.  The US Securities and Exchange Commission charged that not only did Chancellor House received handsome dividends, but also a $1 million “success fee”.  They say this was weakly disguised as a consulting fee when in fact really it was bribery.  Hitachi claimed that it had no idea, despite the fact that it has often been reported in the media, that Chancellor House was an ANC front company, but nevertheless Hitachi agreed to pay a $19 million fine to settle what are essentially bribery allegations.  It is really embarrassing for our government and it is astounding that there appears to be so little embarrassment about it, apart from the usual denials.  The DA has laid charges against Chancellor House, but one wonders where those will go.

I must say that the vision of former South African, Elon Musk, is just breathtaking.  It is not enough for him that he has designed the best electric car in the world, whose consumer reports and safety ratings exceed any petrol or gas-driven car, but he is now developing a major factory for solar-powered energy.  His Powerwall will allow power units in your house to absorb the sun’s rays, store them and use it for electricity later.  The cost is far less than the ridiculous costs in South Africa for generators and for UPS battery-based systems, like my offices have.  When you put it together you will understand why the shares of this company, Tesla, go up despite the fact that the company is not making a profit.  It has a world-beating product that is truly a remarkable car, and if you follow through his plan, you will charge it at home at night, using the power of the sun’s rays!  The whole vision together is breathtaking, and it shows you what the future holds – even if that future for the mass market is 10 to 15 years away. The cars don’t have the limited range that they once had and can drive approximately 400km on one charge and there are super connectors between various cities if you are planning on a long journey.  His ambitions don’t stop there, but that will be the topic of another blog at another stage.  His real plan is to put people on Mars.  He is really somebody that South Africa can be terribly, terribly proud of.

The Ashley Madison story continues to get lots of coverage in the media.  One would think it is impossible for a company to recover from such a disastrous situation – a company that promises to assist you in having affairs and keep your information confidential, but then has everything leaked on the Internet because obviously their security was not up to scratch.  They are however trying all the usual PR tactics to try and convince everyone that things are going well – and of course the first step is always to fire the CEO and they have done that. Since the departure of the CEO, Noel Biderman, they also issued a press release saying that hundreds of thousands of new users are signing up for the site.  Because of the criticism that there are not many women on the site they even specified that  87 596 new women had just signed up on the site.  One of the problems that they have in this regard is that because their database has been put online by the hackers, everyone can get the information now of over 31 million male accounts and only 5,5 million female accounts but whereas apparently 20 million of the male accounts had checked their Ashley Madison messages at least once since after signing up, only 2,4 million women have.  It seems like a lot of people join up on the service, but then never ever send a message or actually use it.  If you are a man on the site, the statistics are indicating that basically every 10 men are fighting for the attention of one woman and one would think with that being publicised more widely that that too will lead to the demise of this company.  I would imagine that the next step, but not right now, is for a sale of the company and a change of name for the website.