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NEW S
Senwes Strategy
>CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12
commodity and geographic diver-
sification.
“We are fully exposed to the
country risks pertaining to South
Africa at present. Diversification
to other geographic areas brings
exposure to the risks of other
countries, which implies issues
such as the stability of govern-
ments, infrastructure, access to
other markets and exchange rate
diversification.”
This in itself implies dividend
stream diversification and the
underlying issue is that the South
African investor will hopefully
become richer in rand terms. The
problem is that he is becoming
poorer in euro, dollar and pound
terms. This is one of the main
reasons why other denominations
are being considered, in order to
protect us against such risks.
How are we progressing
with the implementation
of our strategy?
14
THE INTERNAL STRATEGY
When we look at the Senwes
portfolio, a number of joint ven-
tures have achieved a number of
objectives, such as Hinterland,
Prodist, Grasland, Certisure, JD
Implemente and Electronic Silo
Certs. We will obviously continue
to seek opportunities relating to
local diversification.
• Interesting initiatives such as
the hedge fund with Barclays,
which serves as underlying
instrument for transactions
with a high probability of suc-
cess at this stage.
• The possibility of other plat-
forms and instruments which
we can use in the hedge fund
environment is being investi-
gated.
• The recent acquisition of addi-
tional John Deere agencies in
the Senwes Equipment and
JDI environment, which could
bring about more extensive
geographic exposure and com-
modity diversification.
INTERNATIONAL EXPOSURE
After extensive research certain
international aspects were consid-
ered relating to government stabil-
ity, grading status, exchange rate
stability, soft commodity flows,
access to international markets,
juristic stability, etcetera.
On the basis of the above,
certain countries and companies
were identified. Discussions have
been taking place with companies
in Ireland, Sweden, Germany,
Australia and New Zealand for
the past 18 months to two years,
which are in different stages of
progress. Some companies have
visited us for the third time and
have brought their full boards of
directors to visit us.
Discussions are also being held
with companies in Australia and
we are in the process of investigat-
ing specific structures and possi-
bilities.