Mine – Riding the wave-

The PwC survey titled Mine – Riding the wave, provides an aggregated view of the global mining industry in 2006, represented by 40 of the world’s largest mining companies.

Some of the highlights from the report

• The impact of hedge funds on the mining industry has been felt dramatically in the last two years, through their involvement in metal trading activities and the volatility this creates in commodity prices.
• With rising commodity prices, acquisitions that are cash funded lead to a rapid payback and 69% of major acquisitions in 2006 were funded this way. Cash is also being used to fund organic growth.
• The lack of good quality projects in “safe” areas is leading to exploration and development efforts in jurisdictions that have until recently been considered marginal.
• The pure “taxes” that governments levy on mining companies are only part of the story. A more accurate picture of the total contribution to government and the community by industry participants needs to emerge for the real position to be understood.

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2007 Global Powers of Retailers

This report by Deloitte identifies the 250 largest retailers around the world based on
publicly available data for the companies’ fiscal year 2005 (ended July 1, 2005-June 30, 2006). The report
also provides an outlook for the global economy; an analysis of market capitalization in the industry; and a
discussion of major challenges facing today’s retailers.


Highlights

• Although the global economy has begun to show some signs of stress, fiscal 2005 proved to be another healthy year for the

world’s leading retailers. Total retail sales for the Top 250 reached $3.01 trillion, up 6.0% from last year’s Top 250 total
of $2.84 trillion. Year-over-year growth, based on this year’s list of companies only, proved even more robust, with an 8.8%
increase over the group’s prior-year sales of $2.76 trillion.

• The ten largest retailers continue to capture market share.

These retail powerhouses (six US companies and four European companies) reported combined sales of $885 billion in fiscal 2005,
or 29.4% of total Top 250 retail sales. This represents a robust 11.7% gain over their 2004 results, mostly as the result
of continued strong organic growth.

• The Africa/Middle East region has five companies among the Top 250. All are based in South Africa. Metcash Trading

(Africa) has dropped from # 81 in 2004 to #230 in this year’s ranking, having sold its Australasian operations to Metcash
Group.

• Although international sales are becoming increasingly important to many large retailers’ growth strategies, foreign

operations still account for only 14.4% of the Top 250 companies’ retail sales, on average, up 1.8 percentage points
from 12.6% in 2000.

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Survey on Effective management of SA Retirement Funds

The March 2007 PwC report represents the responses of 110 chairpersons from a wide spread of retirement funds from very large to fairly small with assets totalling over R80 billion.

The survey also compares the South African survey results with an equivalent PwC survey completed in the UK a year ago.

Key survey findings

• In general, funds are managed in accordance with the specific rules of the funds as well as with applicable legislation. Most trustee boards believe that they are up to date with all legislative requirements, but most of them indicate that they have not assessed compliance with the King II principles of corporate governance.

• Although most funds are aware of the importance of good governance, only a third have a formal governance mandate that is used for steering management processes and decision making.

• Only 14% of funds have not considered conflicts of interest. However, only 15% have a formal policy in place to identify conflicts. 75% of funds with assets under R500 million each have not considered a process for managing conflicts of interest.

• Although 85% of funds have considered the performance assessment of their advisers, the process of assessment can be improved. 37% of funds assess performance of advisers on an ad hoc basis only that is not standardised. 9% of funds do not assess their advisers at all. 55% of advisers are selected either on criteria that are subjective, or after informal debate and without any review.

• The survey also shows that on the management of defined contribution funds, SA funds are well advanced. They give considerable thought to the range of investment options they offer members. They also put considerable effort into communicating the risk/return relationships taking into account members’ risk profiles

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Top Women money managers- Annie Yates

	Financial Mail 22 June 2007

One of the most experienced women in fund management, on both the sell-side and the buy-side and now head of business development at RMB. In the early 1980s it was still unusual for company management to deal with female analysts, especially pregnant ones. But Yates says that the various stockbrokers and fund managers she has worked for have always been supportive. After a stint as a journalist at The Star she was persuaded to join stockbrokers Mathison & Hollidge, which was keen to build up its female analyst base. " I was notionally working half days when my children were young, but was more productive than some colleagues who were working a full day." Yates believes portfolio management, unlike some other jobs, does not lend itself to working from home. Financial Mail: Asset Managers