Читать книгу New South African Review 1 - Anthony Butler - Страница 8

It is well-known that the apartheid era provided the conditions for the concentration and consolidation of capital, as the major mining houses diversified into manufacturing, as finance capital diversified into both, and as English-speaking and Afrikaner capital steadily merged their interests with each other and foreign capital. A further development was a greater interpenetration of private capital and the parastatals. By 1981, over 70 per cent of the total assets of the top 138 companies in South Africa were controlled by state corporations and eight private conglomerates spanning mining, manufacturing, construction, transport, agriculture and finance (Davies et al 1984: 58). Yet greater concentration was to come as, with the mounting political crisis, foreign companies disinvested and sold their assets locally. By 1990, just three conglomerates – Anglo-American, Sanlam and Old Mutual – controlled a massive 75 per cent (R425bn) of the total capitalisation (R567bn) of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) (McGregor et al 2009). However, a dramatic change was to sweep through the capital market thereafter. First, the conglomerates chose to ‘realise shareholder value’ by an extensive process of ‘unbundling’; second, the opening up of the economy encouraged major South African corporations to go global alongside a (limited) inflow of foreign capital (see Mohamed below).

The post-1994 liberalisation of the economy was critical. By December 2008, although the market capitalisation of the big three had increased to R1.1 trillion, this represented no more than 24.4 per cent of the total capitalisation of the JSE. Unable to invest widely abroad under apartheid, the conglomerates had invested their excess capital by buying local assets which were often far distant from their core business. But from the early 1990s they had responded to lobbying by their own shareholders to unbundle by selling their non-core assets.

Their non-core assets were largely taken up by institutional investors, both public (for example the Public Investment Corporation) or private (pension funds), as well as by new BEE players who were, in turn, backed by the banks and the institutional investors themselves.² Meanwhile, unbundling had a major effect upon the big three (and the other former conglomerates) themselves. In 1990, Sanlam controlled sixty-four JSE listed companies with interests across food, clothing, mining and construction. By 2008, it had slimmed down to become a financial services company, having in excess of 25 per cent ownership in only four companies on the JSE. Similarly, whereas in 1990 Old Mutual had a controlling stake in seventy-four JSE-listed companies, by 2008 it had stakes exceeding 25 per cent in only two companies (Nedbank and Mutual & Federal). Yet the most remarkable transformation took place at Anglo-American. In 1992, Anglo controlled some eighty-six JSE-listed companies which had interests across the economy, yet by 2008 it had become a more focused miner with holdings of more than 25 per cent in only four JSE companies: AngloGold Ashanti, AngloPlatinum, Kumba and Tongaat Hulett (McGregor et al 2009).

Unbundling was accompanied by rapid internationalisation. Major South African corporations had invested overseas even under apartheid (through both legal and illegal means), yet they had faced myriad restrictions and controls in doing so. From 1994, however, the situation eased considerably, notably by the scrapping of the Financial Rand, the grant by government of exchange control exemptions to major corporations, and a reduction in controls on the outward flow of capital. Most particularly, from 1997, the government granted permission for some of the largest South African companies – notably Billiton, South African Breweries, Anglo-American, Old Mutual and Liberty Life – to move their primary listings from the JSE to London, thereby facilitating their evolution into major multinationals. This development was accompanied by a massive outflow of South African investment capital (McGregor et al 2009). In short, the transition provided the conditions under which significant segments of domestic capital could exit South Africa and foreign capital would come in, facilitated by Johannesburg’s rapidly moving to become the continent’s primary financial centre for global capital..

Much has been made of the extent to which South African capital has moved into the wider continent since the early 1990s, and indeed this is remarkable, not least because it has been a movement which has been so broad-based, across virtually every sector of industry, and because South Africa has become the foremost source of new foreign investment in Africa. Even so, in 2006, Africa absorbed only 6.4 per cent of South Africa’s outward foreign investment, compared to Europe which took 66 per cent (R82.45bn) and the Americas 24 per cent (R29.62bn) respectively (Daniel and Bhengu 2009: 142). However, whilst domestic capital has moved out, foreign investors have moved in to purchase assets from the unbundling conglomerates: for instance, Toyota, First Bowring and SA Motor Corporation from Anglo, Trek Petroleum and Mobil Oil, Carlton Paper and Gencor (now BHP Billiton) and Blue Circle from Sanlam. Yet the group that has gained most from these unbundlings is composed of anonymous investors represented by institutional investors guided by fund managers. Indeed, by the end of 2007, foreign shareholders held 45 per cent of the JSE’s issued shares, up from just 18.9 per cent a year earlier (Hasenfus 2009).

Overall, these various developments add up to the massively increased exposure of the economy to global market ‘sentiment’. As argued by Adam et al (1997: 162–3):

‘Defiance of global expectations that was possible with the relatively isolated semi-colonial outpost in 1948 is now immediately penalised by currency fluctuations, higher interest rates on loans or capital outflows and refusal of investments ... the ANC has to prove constantly that it is worthy of outside support ...’

To be fair, South Africa avoided the immediate effects of the financial meltdown which afflicted the global economy, most noticeably in the West, from 2008. A fortuitous combination of the apartheid legacy of control and post-apartheid macroeconomic stringency had ensured that the financial sector had remained quite tightly regulated. Hence the excesses of deregulation and over-lending that brought many major financial institutions to their knees in the West were not repeated in South Africa. No banks collapsed. Unlike what happened in the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere, the financial sector received no sudden and major injection of public money to stave off a downward spiral. Nonetheless, as Mohamed indicates, South Africa has become dramatically exposed to international currency flows, as ‘hot money’ moves in or out of the economy. Rapid outflows of foreign currency (as in 2001) lead to depreciation of the rand against major global currencies, a rise in inflation, and hikes in interest rates; returning inflows of currency (as during 2004–2006) raise the value of the rand internationally, knock exports, increase imports and lead to current account deficits and balance of payments difficulties. In short, South Africa’s increased global exposure has made government policy become increasingly responsive to the short-term demands of what Trevor Manuel once termed the ‘amorphous market’ rather than being able to pursue long-term strategies of development. This is in considerable part because internationalisation and financialisation have tended to reinforce the commodity basis of the economy.