And now The Money Show with Stephen Skridis on seven oh two.

Let's walk this all.

The Money Show with Stephen Crutis is brought to you by ABS, the Corporate and Investment Banking ABSU is a proud lead sponsor of B twenty South Africa twenty twenty five.

Good evening, Welcome to the program.

I'm Stephen croutis.

Quite a back joe for a Monday.

I must just say, an awful lot going on at the moment.

A lot of it's still to do with the tariff situation.

We'll hear from Bussuma also in just a few moments.

Very interested in government sort of reaction to all of this.

Some of it does make a lot of sense.

The idea of a sort of block exemption for companies in the same industry who are now looking for new markets together, that would make a lot of sense to me in some ways.

I wasn't sure if I were being asked for political advice and how to deal with this, if how I'd mentioned in the first or second paragraph of my statement, if I whether the minister at the dt See or of Derko that you know, I'd complain about South Africans who are sort of sewing disinformation.

I mean, all of that is true.

I think there might just be other ways to deal with it.

I mean, we have to deal with what Trump has done, and we kind of have to get on with it.

I mean, complain all you like.

I don't know if I to put it so, you know, right at the beginning of the statement, I don't know what kind of message you're really trying to send a bus the seeom of USSAW from Business Leadership South Africa.

She'll respond to all of this in a few moments and looking forward to speaking to Jolene Pierce, the CEO designate voted in the last week by the partners at KPMG South Africa.

I think, by and by probably if you google the phrase KPMG in South Africa, state capture will follow quite soon behind in terms of your hits, even though it's actually been quite some time now since all of that happened.

I'll ask her about that.

But I'm also very interested in the future of companies like hers that provide certain services that can probably almost certainly be done about done by AI and how you sort of do that, What do you do in the kind of new era if we can call it that deep somewhere in the impact statement today their CEO, Bruce Strong.

He'll be on the radio after Toler Kelo with the sport he was talking about in their statement today, how fruit cartons are selling very well, So fruit packaging is selling very well, beverage cartons not so much.

Not entirely sure why that is.

There's something going on.

I think it does tell you about what's selling in the economy and what's not selling in the economy.

So I'm fascinated by that conversation.

And we'll hear from government themselves just before seven o'clock and give them a chance to explain their reaction of course to what we've seen with the TERFF.

So quite a lot after seven point thirteen.

If you miss it, may well be worth going back and listening to the podcast tomorrow morning.

Helen MacDougall as someone who's had a very interesting track record, actually been doing many different things in her career.

She'll be talking about her career.

She's now the CEO at Woodland's Dairy, but she was for quite a while a very senior person at Mars and corpor you know, named after the Mars bars, but does all sorts of other they do sorts of other things.

Pet food as well, actually is one of the things that they do.

I was fascinated to see what the ANC has been saying about the economy.

They have been wrapping up a National Executive Committee meeting today.

They say the economy is in a state of emergency.

Well, that's sort of true, has been true for a very long time.

I don't know if they're sort of following what LSUTU did where they declared a state of emergency after US tariffs were imposed, if they're looking for something else.

But I mean, we have been talking about trying to grow the economy for so long now, and yet no one seems to do anything, and that really is I think one of the things that we need to look at.

I mean, my obvious question, I know you'll have a strong view on this is what should we do?

What do we do next in the economy.

I mean, it's a simple questions, unbelievably complicated answer.

So I'll be very interested in your view on that.

Tonight one double A three seven two two one four four six O five six seven and voice notes tonight of course on seven two seven oh two one seven oh two The.

Lney Show with Stephen Krudis live on ninety two point seven and one six FM, streaming on the Prime Media Plus.

NAP and DStv channel eight five six.

Well, I suspect the full impact of the Trump tariffs of thirty percent for most of our goods to the year is still sinking in our government giving a fuller reaction today essentially saying they'll keep trying to negotiate, they try and support firms that are about to lose a huge amount of business, as the Sama Vosa was the CEO at Business Leadership South Africa Bussy Good Evening.

Are government suggesting that they're going to try and provide support, there'll be block exemptions, things like that.

Do you think our government is stand enough to try and avoid these tariffs from the Trump administration?

Thank you.

So sure?

I think would be This is generous to say that we were not expecting a different outside who knew who you know?

That this is the outside.

That way if you're going to get We moved to them that this was a negotiation that I was brought with tension given the strained Washington pratorial relationship that had been under pressure for more than a decade.

I think even Minister Taxtyles said that this was never an engagement on trade, It was an intersection of your political, domestic and trade issues.

So I think this is where we are at the moment.

Look would it look at it ten years three?

Would we have stand that?

I person, we could have, you know, but in the last few weeks and in the last few months in terms of having tried to engage with the US government and hadn't tried to do our best in terms of putting an offer that was that was convertible for their consideration.

I guess it's many countries on hundred and eighty five countries are intrument in trying to do the same.

So I guess we knew that actually going to be difficult.

I think the key issue now is how to re ensure that this thousand actually tend to an economic decigination, you know, and what interventions are we're actually putting in place and to our extend to those are ectually adequate.

Government seems to believe this will cut out GDP.

The figure in the statement today was by a round point two percent.

Do you think it's going to be worse than that?

I think it's definitely going to be worse than that, because I think we're just looking at direct industries.

You know, you're looking at through Mercedes, you're looking at you beyond, You're looking at the companies that are going to be interested.

But I don't think we're taking into account to the intrusive facts.

I don't know if you saw over the weekend seeing a company that the sophisticated machinery and software for the automotive industry, and the province is talking about having lost contrasts work for a number ten fifteen million rans.

They employed five hundred people and indirectly interest thy thousand other jobs in the Valueta.

That is the kind of destination you're talking about.

So we are mistaken to think that business strus and the SAD stands bemusing whatever issue.

There are those indirect impacts.

So we need to ensure that such short term short you know, that will likely destroying many draw you know, I tryly talt it so for in two percent is definitely minimize their impact is going to be definitely more than that.

The support government says it will give to business this block exemption from the Competition Act under some circumstances, well, companies search for new markets.

I mean, is that going to make much of a difference.

My own sense is that government doesn't have the money or the resources to really do very much.

And they don't.

Then why the Trade Minitary is talking about re routing the rundred and forty million organizations are perfund to help businesses in distressed So you're going to actually be very careful about what is the criteria that a goal put in place for accessing of this fund because you have to make for that it goes to those companies to need it the most, you know, and I really think that it shouldn't just be a government issue still, there should be a crisis committee that is actually put in place less as back to the template that we have from me from NLCC to deal with these shade challenges.

We deal with international customers every day.

It doesn't you know, we know what looking for new markets looking, we know which market to go to.

You know, I've been leaving this conversation I think two months ago with a fision and that you are saying, so Manks, we've been seen the DT and C to open up the Weirdnam market for US, so companies and industries know where to look so if government said that this is going to be just their issue, it's actually going to thing.

It needs to eterally be a concerted effort, you know, with all the players that are actually going to be interested.

I don't know if you heard our E W and bulletin twenty minutes ago the A n C NEEC meeting wrapping up the A and C saying the economy is in a state of emergency.

I mean, I'm sure one could argue it's been like that for quite a long time.

Do you believe that anything is going to happen with the current government that is going to enable the economy to grow?

And I'm sorry to put it quite like that, but I think that's where we are.

All these interventions that are actually being explored, you know, And I think timing is everything still, and I think we can't talk about these things and think that it's going to take months and months on end.

SKIP actually is atily prittical because I think we find ourselves in a very difficult situation that we're not the only ones with the situation.

Other markets are.

Those markets are more nimble and more agile than South Africa.

They're actually going to suppass us and front strive us and going to those markets that are actually be looking at.

So it's really going.

To be a function of who's actually going to be in a position, who is fall you know, the quickest intent of ensuring that the damage staggers happened this company that is blowing size fund other people.

If you are not going to meaning fully intervene soon, you know, they will have to make it very painful decision not closing that off.

So what does acting quickly before they make that decision look like?

So I think timing nimbleness, you know, uh, and I think being front suited on this is actually going to ensure that we get out of this economic right.

And as I'm saying, let's put the right layers on the table, don't pret one hundred people from governing, T players, T industry leaders, national CHASU are dt IIC depore.

You know, this is what another national dialogue, you know, just pringing twenty people in the room, twenty people in the room and come up with very actionable who's throwing out by who's doing work back?

When?

Who are we literally engaging and you know, timeline very specific, you know, tasks that are actually going to be done within the next weeks.

Otherwise we're actually going to face a serial economic destination.

Still Worthie, Thanks so much for your time.

Bussim of also sobering a conversation CEO at Business Leadership South Africa.

Evens on The Money Show six to eight pm.

Confirmation from the audit firm KPMG, Jolene Pierce is their new CEO taking announced at all the new CEO designate, I should say she'll be taking over in March next year.

That's after a vote last week.

Jolene Pierce is on the line now, Jelene.

Good evening.

It's one of the prime jobs in accountancy in South Africa.

Congratulations, Good evening, Stephen, and good evening to your lists.

Yes, what a phenomenal opportunity for me.

It's been quite a day today and you know, there's there's a lot of excitement to start this week off with.

How would you describe the state of the company you're taking over?

How do you feel about where KPMG is at the moment?

I feel really good about it, Stephen, And you know, obviously we still continue on our journey in terms of the role that we play in providing credibility and providing you know, support to our clients as they navigate these headwinds that you are actually discussing in the previous conversation and previously in your introduction, you you know, mentioned that we have been on a journey, and you know, I've been part of that journey personally, as I've been with KPMG for the last twenty six years of my career, and you know, we've had some phenomenal opportunities in the market where you know, the market has has really recognized all the measures that we've taken and provided us with opportunities to order some of the really really significant systemic institutions in the country and also work with them in advisory capacities on some of the headwinds that they're facing at this point.

I mean, I suppose that one of the big things on the desk of Anatius Shola, your predecessor, he's still there now of course until next year, but yet to deal and this had gone on for some time, the fallout from the state capture era.

Do you think that's still an issue for KPMG's reputational Do you think you're now able to define yourself as a firm outside.

That Stephen I think we have defined ourselves outside of that.

I mean, you know, all the remediations that we communicated to the market in terms of working with our regulator have all now been finalized.

So where we you know, the space where we are at now is really you know about excitement into the future and taking the firm forward into you know, some of the really really great opportunities that we will have in tough economic environments to make a different in our country, whether it be in you know, in the infrastructure space or whether it be healthcare.

You know, I think really what our focus now is recognizing that the public trust is really part of who we are, and we've come a huge journey and really understand that.

But it's how do we take our firm forward and really help our clides and stakeholders navigate the difficult economic environments that we're facing.

At the moment, the environment you're in is probably changing more quickly than well certainly anytime.

I can remember AI is going to do a lot to a lot of industries.

What do you believe it's going to do for you now?

On one level, sure, if you can make yourself experts in AI, you can sell that expertise to your clients.

But I do wonder what it does to actual accountancy and whether you're going to need as many humans in the future.

So I think there will always be a part that humans play, even in an AI environment.

So you know, there's no that AI is going to impact every faceage of every business as we rely on it more in terms of faster processing power and much better data that's available to organizations to really progress with their own strategies.

I think in the accounting profession, AI provides us with an opportunity, and this opportunity really is around, you know, doing things on a faster scale, improving the quality of what we do, and also providing opportunities for our people to really upscale themselves in something that is really so topical that's really going to stay with us into the future.

So I don't see the role of accountants being diminished into the future.

I think that the way that they actually, uh you know, they conduct themselves, or the benefit that they bring, it's going to be in a different way.

So there's still a lot of judgment, there's still a lot of advice that needs to be provided as we walk journeys with our clients, and really that's going to be the more exciting role that our people are going to play rather than you know, the really drugged work of routine based type work.

It's really going to be elevated into something much much more exciting.

Do you think there might actually be more opportunities for companies like yours simply because so much is about to change so quickly.

Look, I mean, I think some of the change is overblown, but I do think we're about to see quite a lot of change.

Yeah, and no doubt about that.

And you know, I just mentioned some of you know, the opportunities that it creates for us internally, but obviously all of our clients are deployed deploying AI solutions throughout their businesses and we are upscaling ourselves, and you know, this creates, as I said, opportunities for our people to also work with our clients in terms of, you know, about the challenges they're facing and the trust mechanism that they would look at us to provide in actually trusting some of these technologies and the AI coding and output that they're using to make really really critical decisions in their business.

Joline Pierce, thanks very much.

Indeed, the CEO designate at KPMG.

What up Stephen on seven two seven oh two one seven oh two already from Alex this evening, saying, and I was talking earlier.

We'll speak to the impact teo about what's selling and what's not because the fruit cartons are selling and that tells you something that's going on.

Alex Is Stephen, I've been in the retail food industry for twenty years.

You want to know what's happening on the ground, talk to us.

In my time, in all my time, I've never seen it this bad.

There's no cash in the system.

Everyone is paying on credit cards.

Some meter becoming luxuries.

There's collusion and lack of investments, and everyone is just chasing the money.

They're no terms at the moment.

There are lots of casualties and lots of businesses are going to close down.

There's simply no leeway.

I mean fascinating to get something like that.

Someone at the coal face and just giving us their view on how they see it.

I'd love to know how you see it at this point.

On a double one double A three seven two two one four four six o five six seven The Money Show the Market Arthur Carris's portfolio manager at Macro Solutions at the old mutual investment group, Arthur good Evening, once High prop withdrew their bid for Mass, it was kind of obvious that Prime Capital was going to move in.

Yes, I think so.

You know, once once a deal starts to happen, and I think it opens up the door and I think it's care creates the impression that they deal done and that's what's happening.

I mean, I imagine, you know, they've got some money, they've got some secured funding, there's a sort of preference deal preference share, but really a kind of cash deal offer.

Are you expecting to be able to go through that?

I can't see much opposition.

They're still lingering questions from some of the minority shareholders about the real relationship between Prime Capital and Mass.

Yeah.

I can't make a case therefore, whether it's going to happen or not.

I think so unusual for some minority investors or some soundsable investors to have a different view on valuation.

I think that you often see that in an acquisition, and you see the whole thing being dragged out of it as someone tries to squeeze a bit more.

Out of the deal.

There was a court ruling in the UK last week and it got round out a little bit here because so much was going on around inflation targeting and of course the tariffs in the US.

But as I understood it, essentially it seems to absolve the First Round group's business there of much responsibility for the car sales issues in that country.

This pre dates First Round actually getting into the business.

It was about the commission that car dealers got a First Round put out a send stape in today they're still examining it.

How do you see that going forward?

It is one of those monumentally complicated technical issues.

It's been going on for quite a while and I think investors are aware of it.

First Round has provided a lot of detail around it, so everybody has a reasonable idea of what the worst and best case scenarios around this could be, and First Chunder has already made substantial provisions against this.

So in a nutshell, it involves someone going to purchase a car from a dealership.

The leadership arranged finance for them, but the purchaser was not made aware of the fact that a commission was paid back to the car leadership, and they then turned around when they became aware of this and said, if I'd known this, I would perhaps have looked at this three differently because I didn't realize that the car dealer was incentivized to sell me this particular finance package.

So it's been going on for a while.

By I look at the numbers, it's not the worst case scenario.

First, Chand has come up and said that they will probably need to make an additional provision here, but that they still expect to come in at the lower end of the profit guidance.

So ordin all, that's a pretty good outcome, and the share price responded in a way than that suggested.

Most people think that's the case.

There was a bit of a set off on Friday on the JC towards the end of July, partly also, of course, because of the tariffs and other issues in the States.

There was that big sell off there because I presume because of Trump firing the statistician whose numbers he didn't like.

This week, both the JC and in the US, it seems to have bounced quite hard.

Yeah, on our market, it's really the precious metal shares that have done well.

So I think a concern if you've got a president that's going to appoint people, that's only going to produce statistics that he likes.

It's a real worry.

So on the back of that, we've seen a slightly week of dollar which has resulted in a stronger round.

It's resulted in a stronger gold price, and the gold shares have responded.

On the back of that.

And after a week a month, the ten cent still gives a big steer to what's happening with nice person.

Prost also had a better day, So all of those things led to us having a better mark lost a week finished last night.

Arthur Carris, thanks very much indeed, portfolio manager at Macro Solutions at Old Mutual.

And of course there's so much going on at the moment on the market, so many different ways and directions in which to look.

And keep making this point.

The volatility at the moment, it already shows you the sentiment if you do it, if you have the slightest scent of good news, you get rewarded.

The slightest inint of bad news, you get punished big time.

Coming up in the next little while, will be speaking to impact also be very keen to hear from you.

You heard Alex's comment a moment ago about how difficult the situation is on the ground.

Also, we'll hear from government their response to Trump's tariffs.

Double one, double A three oh seven oh two and two one four four six o five sixty seven.

What's up, Stephen on seven two seven oh two one seven oh two.

Well, voice notes coming through tonight.

You heard, of course, earlier the ANC.

You heard this from the w N bulletin, essentially saying that they believe that the economy is in a of emergency.

One or two responses to that.

Hi, Stephen, I'm not an economist.

I'm absolutely no expert, but I just think it's so ironic that it's the ANC.

He goes the economy is in a state of emergency.

It's like the very people who kind of broke it.

You know.

I don't know what the solution is, but all I know is like when you hear stuff from them.

It's just words.

It's just oh yeah, we all say these words and then do absolutely nothing as usual.

Sorry to sound cynical, but I mean it's just a bit of a joke, right, And you're Richard and k Tell all.

Right, Richard, thanks, Look, I'm sure there's plenty of people who agree with you.

I think there'll be people who disagree with you in it.

I mean, an economy is a very complicated thing.

If you look at what's happening in the States, Trump is going to claim response, you know that everything bad is because of Biden and everything good is because of m When you know both of those things can't be true.

I mean, it just can't be true.

And I suppose here there are lots of sort of underlying factors for our poor economic performance, and I'd start with education.

I do think though, that if you're the government and per you do need to take some sort of you know, responsibility overall.

In some ways, I do feel that the way economies work now, I think politicians have very little that they can do except to sort of enable or I know some people will simply say to get out the way.

I don't know.

You might want to respond to Richard on O double ONEA A three oh seven O two and O two one four four six O five six seven seven.

Oh two with Stephen Curtis.

Email him on Stephen at seven oh two dot co dot .

Well do to hear from the ANC And just a few got the A and C on the brain tonight, Doty hear from government.

I'm going to hear about that.

I'm sure going to hear duty hear from government in their formal response to what came out of the tariffs, and they're essentially more from them on the statement that they released today.

The Departments of Trade, Industry and Competition and of course the Department of International Relations and Cooperations just gone accord it to seven.

By the way, you with the money show results out from the paper and packaging company impact today revealing while they're still strong demand from the fruit sector, some other packaging sectors out down a little but also higher costs.

In the paper business, the plastic business saw lower volumes as well.

Bruce Strong's the CEO impact, Bruce, good evening.

You can actually judge quite a lot about our economy from your results.

Some sectors are obviously doing better than others.

What do you think might be leading to a drop in demand for your plastics business at the moment?

Well, good evenings to you, Stephen, and thank you for having me.

It's quite important just to understand our plastics drop in revenue in the context of firstly portfolio rationalization, so last year, we as part of a broader scheme, part of our strategy, we have disposed of our Versa Pact business, which was a styrene tray and film business that no longer is part of the group.

We've got to we're paid out for that to the end of last year.

And we also exited lower value pre forms which are used for carbonated soft drinks.

Last year we made a lot of those over a billionaire year, and now we don't make many at all.

So that was reflected in the numbers, especially the carbonate soft drink preforms.

We're no longer in the numbers, and so that was the main reason for the decline in the volume in the plastics business.

In so far as the plastics business profitability declining in the first half, I think it's also important to point out that the plastics business in our particular case makes most of its profit in the second half, and we still expect a very strong year this year compared to last year in that plastics business, so we do expect to recovery there.

Why does we do, sorry, Bruce, why does it do bet on the second half?

Well, generally we produce, we use our capacity through the year, so in one of our bigger businesses, which makes bins and crates, we produce a lot to stock in the first half, and in the second half when demand picks up, we sold that stock.

So that's that's one of the reasons when demand is higher.

So we try and smooth out our capacity utilization through the year, which means we build stock in the first half to sill in the second half, and generally the second half is has got more demand because of the build up to the fest of season.

And so on and so forth.

Okay, that makes a lot of sense, thank you.

Yes, Now, so the economy has been weak, I mean it was weaker and what we had anticipated in our results on not as good as we had hoped they would be here and they're below our own expectations.

What did give us some optimism.

Was exposure, as you correctly pointed out to the fruit sector, which has been a deliberate strategy for the lost at least ten years, and we've really.

Invested a lot in the recent past and.

We are doing now with our condom Or upgrade of one point three billion Rand, which is basically gearing that paper mill to make the right type of paper for export fruit boxes, which are still growing and this year alone, the Citrus Grows Association expects citrus exports to grow by some nine percent, which in an economy like this is a is a god send.

Thanks thank goodness for that.

And then on our.

Container board side, that is in the quite a commoditized sector.

But we've invested extensively in our Felix and papermal in Northern Quaslin Hotel and that investment completed in twenty twenty three.

And so despite the paper industry being in a cyclical downturn and a very deep one, Damil is still doing very well and it was fully sold for the entire period, so that was encouraging as well.

The fact that you've been investing so much in your fruit packaging business, you're not that worried about American tariffs.

Of course we are.

I mean we're worried about the tariffs and especially our relative position compared to our competing countries like Peru and Chile who also export fruit into the US, and they are facing ten percent tariffs and we're on thirty percent.

So that is a significant concern for us.

But it is important to bear in mind that the fruit exports to the US are not a big proportion of our of our citrus exports, they're probably less than ten percent, and also less than ten percent of our grape exports.

Having said that, in the regions where those producers are focused on that market, the impact is big and many of our customers in those regions.

So we are doing.

Everything we can with them to obviously make sure that we get market access elsewhere or otherwise resolve the impast with the US, and we hope that we can have that done.

You know, the various players in the near future.

You point out that some of your costs are significantly high.

Electricity is one of them.

You've invested in producing your and generating your own electricity as well.

A higher power price is still having a big impact on you.

Yes, I think the high power prices affect our relative competitiveness to imports.

For example, so some of our import competitors, especially in our cotton board business, are from the East Asia and they are subsidized producers.

We are completely unsubsidized.

And when you take not only the power costs but the availability of power.

And while we're out of load shedding, AR must just point out that in a Corollerini that we had just in this past six months, eighteen days of downtime at a factory that normally runs twenty four to seven just because it didn't have either water or electricity without any notification.

So you know, we've rarely been struggling in a corolleri and so that's put us on our back foot in terms of our relative competitiveness as a country.

I'd say, so it's not only about the cost of the power, it's about the quality of supplying the availability of that power.

Would you advise other companies to try and do what you've been doing as well, to invest in generating your own electricity.

I mean, clearly that's working out when and where it's when and where it actually works.

Yes, And it's worthwhile just pointing out that our investments in solar power started in twenty fifteen, long before load shedding was a factor, and it is purely on the basis of the effector cost effectiveness, and it has proven to be a very good investment.

So for you has invested about two hundred and twenty million RAN in solar PV plants for our sixty or it will be actually twenty one twenty two megawats by this time next year.

And we're looking at a project at our Quondom will for another sixty six megawats, although we think only fifty years viable at the stage because it's got to be behind the meter.

So it's definitely viable if you're using it behind the meter.

For the time being, in terms of putting in solar plants to solar power, the payback on those type of projects is less obvious to us as a paper manufacturer and a packaging manufacturer for the time being.

The relatively slow economy and I think you say in the near term you don't see much scope for that to change.

Have you completely lost the optimism that we had with the formation of a coalition sort of a year ago.

Well, I wouldn't say my optimism is necessarily bolt on the coalition.

My optimism is boilth on our company's ability to navigate through whatever times a throne at us.

Of course, you need the economy to go to grow to benefit from that.

But just to give you an example of the fruit exposure, and that doesn't require single percentage growth in consumer spending in South Africa to realize the benefits because those exported quantities.

Another area where we've invested quite extensively is in the change in consumer patterns, for example, home shopping, you know, delivery deliveries to home.

So our Felix and papermal upgrade that I mentioned earlier in twenty twenty three was really aimed at increasing our output and capacity of paper that you used to make bags for shopper bags for home delivery, and we've seen tremendous growth in that area, well in excess of twenty percent per annum, just because of changing consumer patterns.

So what I think we're trying to do, and we have done to some extent successfully so far, is align ourselves with sectors that, despite this economy, are still able to grow.

But as you correctly point out, you still need consumer spending growth at the end of the day to give the base of your company something to live off.

Ruy Strong, Thanks so much, CEO of the Paper and Packaging Company Impact.

The Money Show with Stephen Krutez is brought to you by Apps of Corporate and Investment backing APPS as are proudly sponsor of B twenty South Africa twenty twenty five.

A statement today from the Departments of International Relations and Trade and Industry that they're still trying to negotiate with the US about the thirty percent tariffs most of our goods will be charged on entering that market.

Also confirmation from Minister Ronald Lamoler and mister Parks Now that they're looking at a block exemption from the Competition Act for companies the same industry so they can seek new export markets together.

The spokesperson for the Department of International Relations and Cooperation is Crispin Pierri at Crispin Good Evening.

The Trump administration had previously blue ticked you do you believe they're really going to talk to us now?

I mean, is there really any hope at all of that happening.

It doesn't seem like it to me.

Yeah, Well, we do understand that there are a number of engagements that are still ongoing with a number of countries still today, So we certainly are in that queue, and we do believe that we will be able to at least have a rational conversation around what this tariff, unilateral tariff entails and what can be done to ensure that it's mutually beneficial on both sides, even though, of course either way it's going to result in extra costs for consumers, probably on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Your statement today mentioned that you expect these terriff have an impact of around two point two percentage points on our GDP.

Business leadership South Africa earlier on the program disagrees with you.

They think it will be worse if you just look at the Eastern Cape and the car industry and all of the knock on impacts.

I mean, zero point two percent doesn't seem like much.

It would seem to me likely in fact, it will be worse than that.

Well, we also need to separate the Section two or three two terrafts in this and that's a completely separate process.

The Section two three two terraces, the terrace on steel, and I think it's an aliminium that's the US have impost.

But yes, one could say that this is a preliminary estimate, and it's an estimate that we've also seen for a number from a number of economic analysts, so we're not alone on this estimate.

But it is a conservative projection that takes into account the direct impact on specific sectors, and the final impact will really depend on several factors, including the success of diversifying our export market.

It's the effectiveness of our support measures and the resilience of our own industries.

So we will be able to provide more detailed analysis based on modeling once all of these once the modeling is complete.

But our immediate focus now is on protecting jobs and stabilizing the affected value chains.

Have you made any headway have you had any negotiation with any other country about opening up new markets?

Well, like Minister la Mula and Daou had said at the press conference, one of the significant things that have happened in the last couple of months just before FOLKAK was us opening up the Chinese market to beef, for example, and that's quite significant because the Chinese market is a very big market, so ensuring that we're able to export all our beef to that market is quite significant.

But also the EU has had a massive diversification impact on our market.

We've made significant progress in opening up that specific market.

We have new partnerships and investment packages with the EU and we're seeing this.

We do believe it or pay food series, so we are confident that our diversification strategy will create a more resilient and sustainable export based for South Africa in the long run.

There's the idea of a block exemption, so as I understand that companies in the same industry wanting to work together to find a new new markets will be allowed to do that.

In the past that would probably have been seen as anti competitive.

This may sort of come more under the DT I see.

But I know you held the press conference together today, and when do you expect more details on that?

I mean, are we going to see something like that happening pretty soon?

I've always wanted to speak a bit about my competition law expertise, but yeah, of course, so this would require us to have a conversation.

This is details see in particular with the competition condition and the idea behind these block exemptions.

They designed with very specific purpose.

It's to enable exporters to collectively overcome the challenges poised by these thirty percent new unilateral terrists if they do come into effect.

But it will not be a blanket exemption.

There would have to be a clear, defined scope which ensures that the collaboration is not collusive in nature.

It must be limited to activities that are directly related to navigating the utilateral terraces imposed by the USA.

So it's going to be a tight rope to walk, but it is something that in fact the Competition Commission Act does provide for generally.

But we will have to ensure that this at all doesn't create any anti competitive behavior in other markets as well.

I mean, it would seem obvious to me that to allow them to share and containers, you know, for shopping goods out of the country, would probably be a first step something like that.

That's actually a very good example.

Yes, okay, government, and this is a general question to saying they want to support companies in any way that you can, And I accept that, and I understand that, I understand why you say that.

Now, unfortunately, I'm not convinced government has the money or really the resources to do much at all for companies affected.

Well, we'll have to.

Look at working collaboratively with a number of government agencies that are in place.

Right we have agencies such as the i DC, for example, which ordinarily do fund new business ventures, and we have to look at how we can redirect some of these funds, these funding instruments directly to where the harm would occur.

So the budget for such programs such as the IDC for example, is quite significant, but at this point we are not able to disclose any specific figures, but what we can say is that the process will be streamlined and we expect to make a formal announcement and open a core for applications within the next few weeks.

Surrounds as government and now our where is he is to actually get the support for businesses as quickly and efficiency as possible.

Crispin Peerey, thanks very much, indeed really appreciate the time.

Spokesperson in the Department of International Relations and Cooperation.

You're at the Money Show.

It's seven o'clock and now The Money Show with Stephen credits on seven oh two.

Let's walk little.

The Money Show with Stephen Crotus is brought to you by ABS of Corporate and Investment Banking.

ABSTER is a proud lead sponsor of B twenty South Africa twenty twenty five well plenty going on of course today and we will speak in a moment to Stephen Boiki Sidley.

You know, of course he's an expert on cryptocurrencies.

A lot more talk around stable coins at the moment, the impact that they're having on Africa in particular in a way I suppose they're probably one of the most important parts of the sort of future of cryptocurrency, although so many people I speak to also told me that in the end they expect reserve banks to sort of get involved, or central banks to get involved in some way shap or form where we'll see.

I suppose Ian Mann's been looking at the book Conquering Crisis.

I quite like the person who wrote it.

His names.

I've never met him.

I have no idea what he believed, but I like him for his title.

His name is William mcgraven.

If you didn't want to read the book, you do now with a surname like that mcgraven.

But his title is actually admiral.

He's one of these sort of guys who comes from the Seals in the US, by which I mean he's sort of rough, tough and used to wearing a uniform.

And then, don't forget Helen McDougall, the CEO at Woodland's Dairy.

She actually has a long history with Mars Incorporated.

This is the company's got nothing to do with elon musk, lots to do with chocolate and bed food.

They do all sorts of things like that.

So very interesting just to hear her history.

Now started out studying medical technology.

If her LinkedIn profile is to be believed, and I'm sure it is, but now suddenly finds herself running a dairy.

I find that absolutely fascinating.

Good year from you as well, of course on a double one A three seven two and two to one four four six, five sixty seven.

The Money Show with Stephen krutis live on ninety two point seven and one six FM, streaming on the Prime Media Plus Snap.

And DStv channel eight five six.

Just thinking about the conversation we had with the coed impact Bruce Strong about electricity and electricity prices and just essentially saying that for them, you know, there's no argument about it now because the prices that Eskim charge are just so high.

And then he was also talking about their installation in the corro Leni twenty four hours a day operation, so you can imagine they're sort of pumping out product, and then they were without electricity for eighteen days this year alone.

I mean, very very difficult to contact, I mean just impossible to conduct business under those circumstances.

So I do wonder how for you the sort of move away from Eskam has been if you've done that and by Eskim, I mean your counsel too.

More and more I hear of people doing this.

I mean I hear of people saying to me and Joe Berg, I'm not moving to Cape Town.

Instead, I'm going to do you know, the sort of the borehole water, and I'm going to do the electricity on my own, and we'll see how we go.

I think some people are kind of dare I say, digging in for the long haul, and they save money in a way.

I mean, there are sorts of problems with us, by the way.

I mean, I mean, you know what's going to happen to ESCAM, and we saw them going to Quart over electricity trading licenses last week.

And it's not just that, I mean the issues with boreholes too.

Anyway, I'd be very interested in sort of whether you're still that big push to sort of go off grid with everything as much as you can.

I don't know if that's still such a big thing.

I think you just need one or two sort of you know, kind of weeks without water, and people get pushed in that particular direction.

But there are certainly going to be consequences one way or another of that.

I've absolutely no doubt, and I know, some people say that boreholes are fine, and some people say no, they're going to cause all sorts of problems further down the line.

And that's even if you're a long way away from the car train.

Two.

Stephen gone x at at Stephen.

Well one of the big growth or one of the big sort of quick moving products we've seen with cryptocurrencies as stable coins effectively coins that are pegged in their value to another currency like the dollar, and we're starting to see this happen in Africa more and more.

Stephen Boiki Sidey is a partner at Bridge Capital and Professor of Practice at the Johannesburg Business School at the University of Johannesburg.

Stephen, I could even good to talk to you again.

We're seeing an explosion in the use of crypto in Africa, and I presume part of that is because people don't trust their governments.

They need to be able to move money around to family and things like that.

Are stable coins benefiting from that growth?

Yeah, the highest Stephen, stable coins or the biggest story in crypto right now.

Just for your readers who are not to wear sable quins live on blockchains much the same same way that bitcoin does that they have a particular usage as you mentioned, that were invented in twenty seventeen.

There's an easy way if you want to do tellubcoin and buy some other cryptocurrency, an easy way to prevent you having to sell into your bank in dollars and then rebuy the other thing.

So they invented the thing called stable coin, so it cost you nothing to put it in a stable coin and then you could buy something else.

But a new and broader usage started arriving in the early to twenty twenties, which has now absolutely exploded.

So there is an article that I wrote a while ago about this, and I apologize to you readers that I don't have can't remember the exact figures.

But in Nigeria, somewhere around twenty five percent, if I'm not mistaken, when they get their salary check in mirror, they immediately put it into dollar stable coin.

Why is that because the mirror is depreciating against the dollar, So you can get rich just by leaving your money in the stable coin.

You don't have to do anything else, you don't have to transact or send it to anybody, just leave it there.

And apparently a huge number of people are doing that.

To your second point, it's not only that it allows people to send money quickly and almost without costs to other people.

It's that they can send it quickly it takes a second rather than if you try to do it by your bank or even Western Union.

If you're doing the remittance, there is time involved, and time is money.

But you can also send it one hundred percent safely.

There is no bank in between checking you.

You send directly to them, and of course banks and central banks are very worried about being cut out of the book.

So I mean there's a lot going on here.

My first question if I were to buy stable coin and I haven't, is how do you know that it will retain its value in sort of well real in heart currency.

How do I know that it will retain its value is the bigger question.

In other words, if it's pegged to something, how do I know that it's really pegged to that?

Because when you buy a stable coin, you buy it with hard cash either rants of dollars and let cash go into bank account, So there is always a one to one relationship between the stable coin and the blockchain and the money that's in the bank.

There is no volatility whatsoever between those two, so they keep their pigs.

That's the financial word for it.

And a dollar stable coin from one of the big reputable issuers of stable coins, and there are a couple of them, is one hundred percent cuarrantee that it will keep its value against the dollar.

By the way, there is a South African stable coin called op which has suddenly become big news in South Africa.

And so it's not only dollar stable coins.

There are also other currency stable coins.

Then the people who run them, if it's free, virtually free to use, and you're putting so let's just stick with the rand example for the moment.

I'm putting one hundred rand in and I'm getting one hundred rands worth of stable coin, and the person that I'm now sending it to you, and Steven sends Steven one hundred rand in stable coin, and Stephen gets his hundred rand, How then does it actually run in a way that the people who are running it, not that it will require much I imagine, actually get something for running it.

In other words, how do they pay for the service?

All right?

So that's that's exactly the point.

The volume of people using stable coins is so huge that a tiny, tiny, tiny transaction fee is all that's required to keep the operators in profit.

Now, when I say tiny, I'm comparing it, for instance, to visa, where you're paying one or two or two and a half percent on every transaction, and in stable coins, you're paying point ero ero something transaction.

Because the volume is so high and the volume is so frequent, they all get to make money.

And in fact, the biggest stable coin issue in the world, a company called Tether, happens to be also the most profitable company in the world.

Buy employee.

Yes, no, I mean I saw that.

The Economist I'm sure you saw had a big article about it quite recently.

So okay, so I can understand all of that.

But then what happens if the money goes to the wrong place?

What if I send it to what if I send it to the wrong stephen?

I mean, how do I How can I then go back and get it?

And that's the one thing that the current banking system does quite well.

You can, and it's happened to me, you know, actually get the money back.

You're quart right, you have in the traditional banking system, even though it costs you money, and it takes time to send.

There is a bank in the middle who guarantees the transaction.

If you send it to the wrong person, in most cases you will be able to go through a whole inconvenient procedure and get your money back.

If you send it to the wrong address in the blockchain, you will not be able to get it back, but there are a series of checks and balances along the way.

It does happen, though, No sure, Okay.

Stable coins, as you point out, allow you to move money around with no oversight, and that's great.

I mean, it's obviously going to be in some ways a big part of the future of money.

It's also quite scary because it means that people can use it for all sorts of things.

Now, on one level, that shouldn't really be a problem.

I mean, governments should not really be interested in why two people are sending money to each other halfway around the world.

But we also know that governments do have some legitimate interests in that, stopping terrorism, financing of this, the drugs trade, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

It seems to me at some point someone is going to and all the governments in the world may be working together bizarrely on this might just say actually, we can't allow this to continue simply because of the criminality whatever it is that could get involved.

Yes, and that is the hot kernel of the dota right now.

For instance, in the United States, the second biggest stable coin operator, which is USDC, is in fact doing KYC or your customers, so they know how the money is moving.

In Europe, Tether is not allowed to operate for that very reason.

So you will see a splitting of these stable coins into those which have information about who's sending and house receiving, and those which do not have information, which are anonymized like bitcoin.

The question of.

How much of those stable coins will be used for indicted purposes is a completely different question that it turns out that that prime on the blockchain is much easier to find than crime in the world that you and I live in with banks, because there are usually bad actors in the middle and it's quite easy to trace in the real world.

So you have five percent of transactions in the real world in old style money are elicit and only point one two percent of transactions on the blockchain or elicits.

Because the public you can see them happen, so it's harder to commit the crime.

You said that it's illegal in Europe.

Are they actually allowed to stop people two people living in Europe transacting in this way?

In some form tether's actually withdrawn from Europe.

I think they probably check your IP address to find out whether the transactions coming from Europe.

But there are banks who are now building stable paypoint has one Lisa I believe has one.

The biggest companies in the world are now all issuing their own stable coins, so there will be a pleasure of these things.

But as you said, some will require you to full out a form and tell your name and your number, and some of them won't.

Stephen Boiki Sidley, thank you very much.

Indeed, I'm sure we'll be speaking again soon.

Partner at Bridge Capital and Professor of Practice at the Janisburg Business School at the University of Johannesburg.

I do, and I'm slowly, slowly, slowly coming to terms with some of the the sort of language that's used around crypto.

I've always been, and I think you know this about me as sort of what i'd call a light cryptoskeptic.

And let's just see how it pans out.

It is a big new thing, and the people who control money and transactions are certainly changing.

I don't think that that process can really be can be put back in the bottle.

I do as a ways say though, just be careful with your money.

And I say that whether someone speaking to you on the phone, whether you know they're from your bank or wherever.

It's just the way your experiences.

Please oh double one, double A three oh seven or two and two one four four six o five six.

Seven The Money Show, Business Books.

I wonder how many times each night you hear the word crisis on The Money Show.

Sometimes think you probably hear it all the time.

We've heard it from the ANC and the news bulletin.

We've heard it from Busaiamvusau.

I don't think we heard it from the CEO of MPACT, but we were talking about electricity.

I think it's sort of implied.

But do you hear the word crisis all the time?

Well, tonight's book is called Conquering Crisis by the wonderfully named Admiral William H.

Mcgraven.

You kind of know he's an American Ian Man's our regular book reviewer named d ed Gate at the Gateways Business Consultancy and how's it good evening?

Thanks for coming in.

I love this book really.

One of the things about it is he's come up with a set of principles about well, how to how to conquer a crisis situation.

It's not as much to prevent it as how you deal with it once it's happened.

And the book says this is a book you should read before you need to yes, And I cannot emphasize that enough.

Just to put him mccraven in in context, he was a retired four star general.

He led the.

US Navy Seals and that's the toughest people in the group and was involved in in special operations literally for America around the world.

He was the fellow who went after bin Laden.

He is the one's who's not personally but organized the the taking out to Saddam Mussin.

He also land up afterwards being the chancellor of the University of Texas, so he has it both.

Experience something very appropriate.

They appropriate there.

But the key about him is that he's given he's got a set of ten principles that you've gotten that you really should be aware of whenever you're faced with the crisis.

Now, the crisis could be on any level.

They can be a political crisis, but they can be a family crisis or a business crisis.

And a couple of the couple of rules that he has, and I'll share just a couple with you.

The first thing is he says that the first reports are always wrong.

Yeah, what a great way to start, actually, because that's so often the case.

And what it tends to happen is that when you start and say that first reports are almost always going to be wrong, be skeptical, skeptical about what's really happening, with the timing of the fact, what's really going on there, And you really need to be cautious about making any any declarative statements before you've had a chance to say, I need to investigate what this is so you don't put your foot into it and cause a lot of trouble.

And people don't do that, and I think that gets things to spin out of control unnecessarily.

Another issue he talks about is having a council of colonels.

I mean the council of colonels.

Obviously military state talk colonels, but I would imagine you have a council of people that you can trust in your organization.

So whenever something comes up, it's very important that it's not only your opinion, but you actually have your counsel people that you really trust, not necessarily at your level, above your level, below your level, that you call into a room, actually a real face to face conversation.

The other point there I love he phrased it very very nicely.

He says, bad news doesn't get better with time, and there's a strong tendency to to feel that you should cover up bad news for as long as you possibly can.

And one everything he talks about he has all based on experiences he's personally had in the military.

There was a time when when there were there were a man came out of out of a he's in Afghanistan, trying to protect the people there, take out the bad guys, and and a man comes out of the area that they are worried about with the with a weapon and he's aiming at everybody, and they take him out.

It turns out that he's a cousin of the president, un like you, And this is he said, this is the catastrophe he found up betrayus who running it At the time, Petress was quite friendly with the president, trying to develop a relationship with them since he was he was very but this was this wasn't just a man being killed.

This is the this is the president's nephew.

And because of that, he instead of trying to dull it down, he found him at half boss three in the morning, took him out of going him out of bed and told him what was happening.

He got yelled at.

They eventually solved the problem together, but he said he were brilliantly Petress after this, because Petre said, I know I can trust you because you'll never lie to me and you'll never withhold any information.

And I think that that's absolutely critical.

Another thing that another instant they had in in Afghanistan was they were tracking groups of people and they had you're tracking them with all sorts of really fancy stuff, but you lose you lose contact because the mountains.

Because they got these guys and they really looked like a bunch of terrorists.

Once they were absolutely pretty sure that they were terrorists, they did take them out.

Now, the problem with them, whether they were terrorists or farmers, is what they had to track, and they tracked them for hours.

They've got incredible surveillance abilities, and the newspapers came out said they that they bombed and killed a group of all they were were farmers and the reporters who were most vicious.

The very next day, he invited them to come to the Jersey where they do the work in the analysis.

He showed them exactly what they do.

He showed them how they work, how they come to decisions, how they analyzed, how long they track and before they make a decision.

He said, by inviting them in to see what was actually happening, and he weaponized the truth.

And by weaponizing the truth, he said the article in the newspaper, one of them stopped, stop vilifying without and the other one moved himself quite a lot.

Just before we go any further, in the States, there's this idea where people who work in the military and military high ranking military offices be right.

We don't have that here.

A very different view.

Does that sort of come across.

He's used to clearly being obeyed and used to being seen as always right.

I think that I think that could happen.

But I think that what probably has happens.

There's so many people that that there's of all people you need to come across the one that you think is right just and I think that when when he looks like a man of good values, but he also seems a man who is quite used to being one.

One last thing and I'll show this you.

He says that there's always time for more, for a morale check.

It was at the University of Texas.

He bought a huge piece of land on behalf of the University of Texas to do a development and went south.

It was a complete mess and was waste of money and waste of time.

And he's the press.

He has to go before the he's the chancellors and everybody else in the tress press really takes him out.

He's sitting in his office and a man comes to his secretary and says, I'd like to speak to mccraven and then said, I don't think now that's the right time.

And he just shouts out.

He shouts at moral check, and and he he said he knew what moral check.

Moral check was.

He said, in the army, when something gets beaten up as vilified wherever it is, you go to them and you do a moral check, moral checks to see that he's going that he's okay, he said.

This man came in they said them, you know, boy, you've you've caused so much trouble enough against And I always wonder how come you always get these top positions here I missed up again and they laughed together and after by the time it was all over the discussions, he was he said he was really glad that this man had told him and come there to support him.

And I think it's terribly important.

And people are in those situations where it's your staff for other people, you know, seated that you have a moral check.

I love.

I love that.

It's a very very interesting idea that you have a morale check you.

We'll have to leave it there, Thank you so much.

A regular book reviewer and MD at Gateways Business Consultants.

Show how I make my money Well.

Tonight we speak to Helen McDougall, currently the CEO at Woodland's Dairy, but someone who's been around for quite a long time.

She was at Mars South Africa for Ages at Danon.

Of course, I'm talking about the dairy business and someone who really knows that business very very well.

Helen.

Good evening, it's wonderful to talk to you.

On the Money Show.

Thanks for taking the time.

Hi, Stephen, good evening.

If I've got your high school correct.

This is all from your LinkedIn profile.

By the way you actually grew up.

I was going to say in joe Burgh, and then I thought, actually, I think probably Rudiport, because many people now might see Rudeport and joe Burg is sort of the same city.

Back then, maybe there was a big difference between the two.

I think there was.

I think I'd sort of merged into one place now.

But yeah, absolutely, born and bred on the West Rand in Lidport.

What was it like growing up in that community at that time up until I suppose the kind of late eighties the eighties, take your pick.

Yes, well I'll go the early one that funds better, right, But no, it was it was great.

I mean, a fantastic school that I went to, a fantastic area to grow up in.

So it was all.

It was all really good.

And I'm now in a very different place in the world.

You went to go and study medical technology.

What were you thinking of doing at the time.

Yeah, so I've always been quite interested in the sciences and definitely in medicine.

Put it that way, and unfortunately didn't didn't study hard enough at school, didn't get the marks to go into medicine to be a doctor, but had learnt about medical technology from my sister actually, who was a back stage of medical technologist, and blood the idea of it, and that's why I went and studied medical technology.

Advice, what were you actually studying?

I don't even know what medical technology was then.

Yeah, So medical technology is all about working in the laboratories and actually analyzing, you know, all the simples, whether it be blood or any other kind of body fluid or body part or whatever fall just to understand what's going on.

So if you go for blood tests, get central to a laboratory, and medical technologists for the ones that do the analysis in the laboratories.

So you went and did that, and what did you do after that?

Well?

I then went and worked in a laboratory and hated every minute of it.

There are only so many types of blood, and who needs to know more?

No, you don't, You really don't need to know more.

But yes, exactly, it just wasn't.

It wasn't what I'd expected it to be.

I loved the theory of it, loved the thought of it, but in practice it was just not me.

Too much routine, too much routine.

Not enough people time.

I mean, all you did was take these samples and work on big analytical machines, so there was no interaction with people.

And that's over the years I've discoveraged is my happy place.

So what happened after that?

At some point you entered the dairy business.

Yeah, well, it was.

Quite a long journey to get to the dairy business.

So while hating what I did, I started looking in those days, and I'm giving away the late eighties versus the early nineties.

I was looking through the newspaper for a job to just get me out, and I came up upon an advert for a medical sales job, and I thought, well, you know, let me give it a try.

I've got the medical background, and how hard can sales really be?

And off I went to the interview and I can't tell you how, but I landed the job, and that got me into sales, so which was a step out of the laboratory and out of the medical.

Side of things.

And realized that I really liked sales and really liked this interacting with people, and went and did a sales and marketing diploma.

And then started off with Kimberley Clark in the healthcare side, which eventually morphed then into their consumer side, which is FMCG and as the years of God.

This is what's got me into daily and where I am today.

Were you repping I mean, were you going out in a car and knocking knocking on company doors and things like that, or was it something a bit more sophisticated.

It was a little bit more structured.

Yes, you were knocking on doors, but it was more on doctors and hospitals and laboratory doors in those days.

And then as I moved into Kimberly Clark, it was actually at hospitals because we were, deed it dealing with surgical products, so it was more structured and calling on you know, doctors that use these products.

I've always wondered what it's like to sell a medical thing because your your company is is your your customer really is the doctor, and yet they can't.

I mean for some for some products, there must be two or three people in the world who make them, and yet they still need to be sold.

Absolutely absolutely, and you know, with the technological advances nowadays, I mean, you need to stay on top of the technology and the changes and sell that to the doctors and the people that are buying it versus the actual product itself, because that ultimately is what selves it and makes it useful for the doctor and the patient at the end of the day.

Okay, So to Denoan, and we're now talking about dairy products.

I mean, I was going to say there are only so many things you can do with milk, but actually there's a ton you can do with milk.

And I would imagine part of what you were doing was was trying to sell as much of that as possible and maybe even dreaming up some new products.

Yeah.

Absolutely, and I suppose over the years, I mean I've moved out of sales into more general management of organizations, so I don't only handle the sales side, but handle everything from you know, acquiring the raw material in this case, the milk from the farmers, right through to you know, manufacturing it into into something else, transporting it, selling it, marketing it, pretty much everything.

But yes, finding new ideas about what you can do with milk and keeping up this global trend bringing them to South Africa's pretty much what we do now.

As how did you see the sort of dairy business change during that time.

I don't know where I get this, but I have in the back of my head something like New Zealand produces mil milk than anybody simply because they have so many cows and more cows than people, which is certainly more cows than World Cups.

But it seems But I mean, how did the industry change during the time you were there.

Well, I worked at the non for just over six years and then left the dairy and now come back to Woodlands in the last year.

So what has definitely changed is dairy as a product has become more desirable again.

I think we went through through a stage where it was almost seen as not as healthy, that there were other alternatives to it, and dairy is becoming more popular because of the health benefits, that's the nutritional benefit it has poor people.

So there's definitely been a change in the category of people are more interested in day, They're more interested in specific nutritional benefits of dairy, and that's that's what we need to keep on top of those trends and make sure that we're not just taking milk and reselling it, that we're adding the valley to the milk that ultimately consumers want.

I mean, there's nothing like toasted cheese on a toasted cheese sandwich.

I mean, it seems to me that for as long as they'll be humans, someone's going to be eating a toasted cheese sandwich somewhere.

Absolutely, you worked for Mars Corporation for a long time.

I'm going to tell you a little story, Helen, very quickly, many many years ago.

When I was advarsity in the nineties, I went to Greece with a very young ucbus Makaiaza for a debating competition and at the time, Mars bars had just arrived in South Africa.

Grease still used the drama and I don't know if you've ever tried to do a round to Drakhma conversion in your head, but you'll probably need an accountancy degree to do it because the drama, you know, there's so many drugmas to the round.

So what I worked out was actually it was much easier for me to work out the cost.

I knew what a Mars bar was in Drachman, I knew what it was and ran so I just you know, as a student, I just basically converted everything to Mars bars so I could work out that one beer in Greece was two and a half Mars bars.

What was it like to work for such a global company because at that time that I'm talking about, globalization was quite a new thing.

By the time you were at Mars was a you know it, Globalization wasn't such a big thing.

You can get most things in most places, but you were still working for a major, massive, global company.

Yeah, it is incredible.

I mean it was an incredible company, not only because it was such a multinational and globally available, but also it's a family owned business and still is today and with family owned values and very whilst there were so massive, they were so invested in their people and developing the people that worked for them globally that I was very, very privileged and less to be part of that organized because I think had I not spent the time that I had with them, and had they not developed me like they did, I wouldn't be in the role of CEO for Woodlands Today.

Companies like that can have their own culture that can sort of supersede the culture of a country.

Was that the case with them, and.

A really good culture, you know, again driven by the family and the principles that they had developed over the years, and whether you worked in South Africa, whether you were in the US or somewhere in Europe, the culture was the same, and it was it was really incredible and again something that I've taken from Mars and or hopefully in part some of that in terms of you know, culture as well as as values and principles into my new organization.

So, I mean, obviously to you the culture of an organization is very important.

How do you set a culture in an organization?

I mean it can sound easy, but I don't think it is.

No, it's not, it's there isn't I think you know, first of all, culture comes from the top, and it can't just be something that you you you imagine one day and you just think it's going to happen.

It has to be driven and it has to be communicated.

You have to get alignment with everybody that that's what they want to do.

And then everything revolves around how you you live and breathe that culture on a daily basis.

From recruiting people making sure that culturally they'll fit too, you know, as I said, living it, living it from the top right down through the organization.

That's that's what that's what will make you successful in driving a culture and calling it out when it's not working.

How do you get everyone to agree?

Sometimes think radio I don't like it when people agree.

It's not necessarily agreeing, it's it's collaborating to come out with the best outcome.

So maybe not everything person agrees to it, but I think you come to consensus at at some level because you shouldn't have everybody agreeing at the end of the day.

You need to have people challenging the status quote and being uncomfortable with everybody agreeing to everything.

So it sounds easy when I say everybody agrees, but it goes through multiple iterations of how you get there and how you convince the outliers of what would be best for the wider organization versus individuals.

One of the things that happened while you were at Mass was he did some courses at Harvard, and we're sort of talking about agreement and culture, and Harvard's found itself right in the middle of the culture wars in the States.

The Trump administration's really taken Email was wondering if you'd been thinking a little bit about them through all of this and maybe just reminded of your time.

Yeah, it's interesting.

I mean things changed globally, I mean against status, clothes get questioned and the way things were done get question But yeah, it's definitely been on my mind and it'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

We're speaking to Helen McDougall tonight, the CEO at Woodland's Dairy, and on her journey with money, essentially taking you through her career.

The Money Show with Stephen Hrutez is brought to you by ABS of Corporate and Investment Banking APPS as a proud lead sponsor of B twenty South Africa twenty twenty.

Five nine minutes to eight on The Money Show tonight, talking of course, to Helen McDougall about her journey with money this evening.

The CEO of the Woodland's Dairy.

Helen, you've been in charge for nearly a year.

Kind of know what that feels like.

You talk about being an ethical company, of doing things with integrity.

How do you think that makes a company sort of stand apart from other companies?

I mean, you know you'll see glossy bank ad after glossy bank ad.

Talking about integrity doesn't mean we can believe them more.

Sure, sure.

I think what makes Woodlands Stare you stand out on this is, you know, our intentionality about sustainability and investment into communities.

So you know, our ESG principles are really strong.

But once again, we don't just talk about it.

We deliver on what we what we set out to do, We measure ourselves against it, and we hold each other to two account So I think that's what really makes a difference is not just talking a good story, but actually being able to stand up at the end of the day and say, this is what we've achieved, and this is what we're still going to do, and making sure that it's aligned with you know, our principles and and what we want to show the world in terms of who we are as an organization.

How do you measure something like that?

I mean obviously you have to, Yeah, you obviously have to sort of you know, break it down into certain things, and that can be quite an interesting process.

Yeah.

Absolutely, And for me it was really stepping into Woodland's sairy because I've never been part of an organization, especially in South African organization that's been so intent on you know, their sustainability goal.

So it is breaking it down into goals for every different division of the organization.

I mean, we even start with our farmers and we make sure that they adhere to what we call the Woodlands Fairy Milk Standard, and that's all about how they farm, how they atreat their workers, their laborers on the farm, the animal welfare, making sure that you know that it's all in line with global principles right through to our organization and how we produce the product.

And you know, the the carbon footprint reduction that we need to do, the reduction in water or at least making our water supply sustainable.

The same with green energy, you know, not just relying on normal energy sources like electricity, but finding alternate sources that are cleaner for the environment.

And that's we have a whole lot of what we call KPIs key performance indicators.

We set goals every year and then we actually report to the board on how we're progressing against, you know, against those goals.

So that's I think how you would break it down.

It is really complicated and not not always as easy as what it stands, but it's something we're really passionate about and really intentional about delivering.

When you are speaking to when you're speaking to your suppliers, and you're in you're in the dairy business, right, So you're talking about cows that are producing milk.

Now, they originally produce the milk in fact, for their own for their own young and but but we as humans drink it, me and so many of us do how do you make sure that they're looking after those animals ethically?

I mean, do you have to do spot checks?

I mean of I mean do you have enough power over a supply to make sure that they do it?

Yes?

Absolutely, So before we sign up to producers or we call farmers us, as part of their contract with us, they agreed to this woodland stairy you know standard, and they also agree to audits, So they get audited where both an internal department as well as an external company goes onto the farms themselves and audits them against a set of of questions and deliverables that they need to achieve.

If they score less than ninety percent on the audit, their contract comes up for renegotiation because we will we will not accept both kind of producers into our business.

The funny thing is all all our producers and our farmers are really invested in it.

And make sure that they adhere to the audits and score way over ninety percent.

When it's a tough time like right now, and I'm talking about economically, and it can feel that almost everything is being squeezed, and you know, there's a lot of competition in the market, there's a lot of there's a lot of milk in the market.

Does it become tougher to do things with integrity?

No, and it shouldn't.

And I'm just talking for myself and I'm talking for Woodland's Fairy, But it shouldn't because we very clear on how we operate and that shouldn't be impacted by anything, let alone the economic conditions.

And if you can't do things ethically, then we shouldn't be in business.

So our team is really clear on what they'll do and how they'll do it, and we we measure them and hold everybody to account.

Okay, but I mean it must be the you know, someone will want to make a target.

We will want to make our targets.

Someone will want to do this, and the temptation to just touch things a little bit, you know, to meet that target during a tough time.

I'm sure.

I'm sure we'll be there.

I'm sure it is there, and yes it is.

I mean, I've seen in other organizations how it is there.

But I think it's how you support your people to let them know that you would rather walk away from those of deals then actually, you know, compromise yourself or your organization.

And if they feel supported and that they know that you've got your back, they won't do those deals either.

So yes, there is always pressure to do that, but I think if you're very clear on what your purpose is as an organization, and for us, one of our key principles is integrity, we make sure we don't get involved in anything like that.

When you look back over the last over the last of your career, and it's been a long and very successful one, do you see there was there any one or two incidents or a person or something that really kind of helped to define you.

Something you saw or something that happened, maybe even a mistake you made or what someone else make that actually in a way set you on the path to where you are now.

Is there something that happened along the way that kind of played quite a big role.

I think there were a couple of things, not not one single defining moment, I think the first thing for me was when I was still in the laboratories and scanning through the newspaper for a job and desperately just wanting to get out.

I spoke to my father and he said to me, I mean, his belief in me was incredible.

He said to me, you know, Helen, you can once you've set your mind to something, you'll be able to do it and you'll be successful.

And just believe in yourself.

And that really backed me up in those days, because I was really nervous, obviously about walking away from something I knew.

Over the years, I've been very privileged to have good line managers, good bosses, good mentors along the way that each helped me.

But there also been some not so good ones.

And the funny thing is you learn and all these lessons from those not so good people as you do from the ones that are really, really great.

But I think the one defining moment for me was getting into an industry that was very male dominated.

In fact, I was one of the only women in the early days in this industry, and I thought I had to, you know, to be successful, I had to behave like some of my male colleagues and I looked really quickly along the way that that didn't get me very far at all, and being authentic, being who I am, I added just as much value as anybody else did, and I think for me that was a really big, end defining moment.

Helen mcdiggial, thank you very much.

Indeed really do appreciate you taking the time to speak to us on The Money Show.

The Sea the CEO at Woodland's Dairy talking about milkine.

So much more fascinating to hear what comes up in these conversations, Helen, thank you.

The Money Show with Stephen Krutez is brought to you by ABS Corporate and Investment Backing Apps as a proud lead sponsor of B twenty South Africa twenty twenty five.

The US market's still up tonight as they were earlier when they opened today, a little bit of a strong bouncil, so of course the expectations of another interest rate kit cut the dowgeons up one and a quarter percent, then astic coup nearly two the s and P five hundred nearly one point four percent at the plenty to come of course tomorrow, lot's to look at tomorrow as well.

We'll be speaking to the sea of the JSC.

They've got results out tomorrow.

We'll see you then.

Good evening, it's eight o'clock