BizNews Radio

A former top-ranked City of London stockbroker has written a manual for winning at business, politics and life. There's just one catch: to follow it, you'd have to think like a psychopath. Geraint Anderson, the man behind the legendary "Cityboy" column, tells BizNews editor Alec Hogg why he built his new book around Trump, Musk and the 'manosphere', how a near-fatal motorbike crash changed his mind about the game he was winning, and why the book is now selling harder in South Africa than almost anywhere else. He also explains, only half-joking, why he's booked in to be clinically assessed for psychopathy himself.

In this interview with Chris Steyn, Alessandro Scalco of RMB Sustainable Finance shares the details of a R1 billion Blended Finance Programme to formalise and scale South Africa’s burgeoning affordable rental market. Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) has partnered with INDLU, a property financial technology company that empowers landowners to build, manage, and earn from high-quality rental housing. The programme aims to bridge the national housing gap—currently estimated at 2.3 million units—by providing sustainable, affordable credit to micro-developers who have historically been excluded from traditional banking sectors due to a perceived lack of formal collateral. Scalco says the programme represents a blueprint for how South African capital markets can drive large-scale, powerful social impact without compromising financial performance. Already delivered are over 2 200 high-quality rental units in areas such as Tembisa, Mamelodi, and Cosmo City. “From a pure sort of job creation perspective, there's quite a few local contractors that have built up teams and businesses. One of the success stories is one of the local contractors actually now does work across Sandton, Four Ways. So they've actually kind of branched out of just focusing on working with the INDLU team to build those units to building across South Africa, or building across Gauteng - and that's actually such a great story. It just shows you the power of getting an opportunity.”

Anglo American's interims dazzled - earnings up 35%, free cash flow up nearly 150%, the dividend all but tripled. But BizNews editor Alec Hogg looks past the headline to what Anglo's walking away from: steelmaking coal sold, De Beers going for a tenth of what it paid, and a Teck merger that moves the head office to Vancouver. A 109-year-old Johannesburg company is quietly leaving. He pairs that with Old Mutual's finding that half of working South Africans now gamble - the sharp end of a two-speed nation. Plus ArcelorMittal, Reinet, Woolworths, a post-Fed bond rout, and the great Microsoft-Meta AI tension.

In today's episode, the Fed leaves interest rates unchanged amid a fractured vote and market sell-offs. Locally, four parties are challenging President Ramaphosa's impeachment interdict, while Treasury controversially releases funds to 69 failing municipalities. We also cover Dr. Fauci invoking the Fifth Amendment regarding the Covid-19 response, Zambia's kwacha surging against the rand, and the mixed reality behind Zelensky's meeting with Trump.

Treasury switched off the taps to 69 municipalities for doing nothing about corruption and mismanagement. Today it switched them back on anyway, days before its own deadline. Alec Hogg asks the obvious question nobody in government wants to answer. Plus: why last week's Reserve Bank rate hold is already punishing the rand, a foundation funded by an arms dealer just published a survey putting China ahead of America in young Africans' eyes, and on the JSE it's a tale of two extremes: Valterra Platinum showering shareholders in cash while ArcelorMittal's losses widen by the day. And the machine that prints the world's most advanced chips just found out China isn't waiting around.