From zero to hero: South
Africa is hot among overseas investors at conference
Fin24 8 April 2022
The Bank of America Securities' annual Sun City Conference had more investors upbeat about SA this year.
- There was a much more upbeat sentiment about South Africa among international investors as this year's Bank of America Securities annual Sun City Conference.
- Some 92 institutions from outside of South Africa attended, and requested more than 500 meetings with local companies.
- High commodity prices and rising interest rates have made SA more attractive as other emerging markets peers fade.
Sustained high commodity prices, rising interest rates and the credit quality of SA banks are convincing international investors to put SA at the top of their emerging markets list again.
This as other emerging market alternatives, like Russia (following the invasion of Ukraine) and Turkey (which is facing a currency and debt crisis) have faded away.
Bank of America (BofA) Securities hosted local and international investors at the annual Sun City Conference at the end of March. Some 78 local corporates attended, and 92 offshore institutions requested 520 meetings with the South African firms.
"It made sense with South Africa being part of the new commodity world order," said John Morris, SA strategist at BofA Securities. "Elevated commodity prices are supportive for South African domestic assets for now," he added.
Morris said investors who came to the conference were looking for areas where there are still opportunities as global growth is slowing down after the buoyant 2021 recovery. And South Africa had a new appeal given the supply constraints created by sanctions against Russia, since it is one of the biggest commodity producers in the world.
He said while SA has its own macro-economic and structural problems, investors were more upbeat about its economic health this year.
Tatonga Rusike, the economist at BofA Sub-Saharan Africa, said investors and economists are "cautiously positive" about SA's near-term outlook. They expect the positive terms of trade, which benefitted from the commodity price boom in 2021, to continue.
"Those high commodity prices are positive for fiscal revenues in the near term," he said, adding that commodity-linked tax collections could surprise on the upside again. Last week, SARS announced collected R1.564 trillion for 2021/22, beating the budget estimate of R1.547 trillion.
Also last week, credit rating agency Moody's upgraded South Africa's ratings outlook from "negative" to "stable", saying that South Africa's fiscal position has "markedly recovered" from the pandemic thanks to high commodity prices, which boosted tax revenue, and government's fiscal consolidation measures, including that it was able to keep growth in the public sector wage bill to 1.6%, well below inflation.
"Indeed, over the last two fiscal years, the government has shown it was able to re-prioritise its spending while staying committed to fiscal consolidation, which Moody's expects will remain the case going forward."
Resources, telecoms, banks in the spotlight
Because of this upbeat commodity price outlook, investors are falling more in love with precious metals miners. These are the companies that delivered the R182 billion unexpected tax windfall for SA in 2021, allowing the government to fund the R350 grant extension without additional debt and avoid many tax increases this year.
Morris said resources companies present at the conference reported a continuation of strong demand, although they are concerned about a global slow-down as the year progresses.
Offshore investors were particularly interested in resource stocks that recovered slower than their peers in 2020. But all investors are wary of rising input costs in the sector, especially if there is another oil price spike soon.
"For Bank of America buy-rated stocks across the market, we expect returns of over 20% in 12 months. Returns, though, are at risk in the second half of the year," said Morris.
Other sectors that had more investors' attention are telecommunication, technology and financial stocks. The spectrum auction and limited fibre infrastructure in SA have investors convinced that mobile operators are poised for more growth.
The financial sector, particularly banks' credit quality, also performed ahead of investors' expectations in 2021. Investors are also watching how banks will execute their plans to enter new markets as more want to increase exposure in the African continent.
Record portfolio inflows
BofA said portfolio inflows into SA in the past six weeks had been one of the highest since 1994.
Apart from investors who reviewed their portfolios putting more money into local assets, SA also benefitted from the fact that many companies have upgraded their earnings expectations.
"South Africa has become more attractive relative to other emerging markets either because of unconventional monetary policy in Turkey or the Russia-Ukraine war. We've seen increased inflows for the SA government bonds and equities," said Rusike.
And SA government bonds have become more attractive because of the rising interest rates. Morris said BofA's London team is "constructive" on SA's bonds, and so are many local fund managers.
"The risk is appealing, particularly from a risk-reward point of view. [Even as] the [JSE's] All-share index has been performing well this year, the returns from bonds remain attractive. They are like equities," said Morris.
He said the strong rand has also played a huge role in creating a positive sentiment around SA assets.
The local currency is currently trading around R14.80, from around R16/$ at the start of the year.
When BofA asked investors what they consider to be the key risks in SA, not one person ticked the "volatile rand" box.
Samigration.com