Evil Knievil: Mbabula the fooler

There is a bid for Watchstone (LON:WTG) which is slightly below the current price, 36p. This is a mandatory bid but cannot make any sense since any bidder even slightly in charge of his brain would have to have a very strong view of the outcome of the PwC litigation. If he has this, he is probably an insider trader. This fact puts a dampener on any bidder’s aspirations.

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Pittards (LON:PTD) continues to reassure its shareholders by buying in a further 10,000 shares at 58p. I know it’s not much but if PTD were in trouble the management would surely hold back from buying. This means that PTD is still a good buy.

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Finally, Fikele Mbabula, the South African transport minister, challenged by the BBC’s Hardtalk to explain SA’s financial mess responded that the problem had been caused by colonialism. Even though that phase ended in 1994. The fact that Cyril Ramaphosa has snaffled upwards of $500m whilst his brother-in-law is SA’s richest citizen seems not to bother Mr Mbabula. Truly SA is a failed state. I must suppose that the Chinese will be bang in there buying brilliant long-term assets for cash. We will then find out who are SA’s friends.