Molins, Lonmin and Acacia Mining

Molins (LON:MLIN) reported last week and, save for the elimination of the dividend, the results were much as expected. But the outlook statement strikes me as pretty bullish. I know some would prefer to hold back on the grounds that within a few weeks’ time they’ll be, say, 10% lower. But I doubt it.

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Zuma, anxious to appeal to the feckless and ignorant nature of many of his voters and to deflect attention from the staggering record of misconduct by him that he has run up, has now proposed that white-owned agricultural property be nicked. How will he define “white-owned”? I do not expect that he knows. Of course, the end result will be a sharp decline in food production in South Africa and, I suppose, the eventual importation of basic food stuffs. I have seen this before in both Zambia and Zimbabwe where territories which had once been massive agricultural produce exporters destroyed their basic prosperity.

Readers of Aidan Hartley in the Spectator are amazed that he is still alive given that he and his contemporaries as farmers in Laikipia in Kenya face marauding nomads and their thousands of cattle desperately seeking water. Murder is commonplace and the Kenyan government is in practice ineffectual.


Anyway, one does wonder whether Zuma’s attitude might extend to his government’s attitude to Lonmin (LON:LMI), now 110p. I hope not. But I am far from certain.

Elsewhere in Africa, Acacia Mining (LON:ACA) is down sharply both on last Friday and today, now 430p. The Tanzanian government has banned exports of, inter alia, gold. This destroys ACA. But I think it is unlikely that such silliness will hold sway – how silly can one get? Also, punters should remember events surrounding Centamin a few years ago. I think this makes ACA a buy at 430p.

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Finally, a few days ago I was visited by a chum who lives in South Korea. I asked him whether he was concerned about the prospect of being bombed by North Korea. He was amazingly insouciant, remarking that if North Korea were to do anything silly it would instantly be flattened by South Korea’s army and the Americans. He remains confident that the peace of the last sixty years will continue. Cool or what?