Our analytics on our content engine has shown a spike in interest in three particular JSE-listed shares: Balwin Properties, Huge Group and 4Sight Holdings and we have prepared snapshots of each of the counters in the next couple of posts.

The main interest around Balwin appears to be our 15 May post entitled: “Balwin facing a cash-crunch”

Since May, the share has fallen 41% and is now trading on an historical price to earnings multiple of 2.8 times earnings and offering a 10% dividend yield. These are both historical numbers and are not indicative of future earnings or dividends.

Annual General Meeting:

On 4 September 2018, the company held its Annual General Meeting (AGM) where 79% of the shares were voted.

In line with the trend of shareholder activism, there were a couple of interesting votes to note:

1. 84% of the shares represented voted against the re-election of Hilton Saven and Ronen Zekry to the board. Saven (65) is the chairperson of auditing group Mazars and chairperson of the Balwin board while Zekry (38) is the non executive representative for Buffet Investments which is a major equity investor in the group.
2. 8% of the shareholders voted against the general authority to issue shares for cash
3. 2% of the shareholders voted against the remuneration policy

Interim Results for 6 months ended 31 August 2018:

These were released on 4 September with the following key highlights:

• Headline earnings per share up 9%
• Operating profit up 14%
• Net Asset Value per share up 18% to R5.09
• No interim dividend was declared with the board indicating it will re-consider the position at year end
• Cash and cash equivalents dropped from R100m at the end of February 2018 to R62m
• Gross profit margin dropped from 32% to 27%

The below table makes for interesting reading showing the existing capacity and number of unsold units per development as at 31 August 2018: