As a young student, Alex van der Watt had dreamt of becoming a captain of industry after he graduated. But a weekend away with friends changed all that. He had completed his articles at PricewaterhouseCoopers two years previously and was enjoying some time out with friends when someone who would later become a colleague suggested…
This month’s column examines a recent NASA-backed study that states that the fall of the Roman Empire and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian empires, all bears testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilisations can be both fragile and…
Proposed amendments to the Value-Added Tax Act of 1991 were announced by the Minister of Finance during the budget speech. As anticipated, the Minister of Finance did not announce an increase in the standard 14 per cent rate of VAT in the latest budget speech. The following amendments have been proposed, however: Section 11(1)(e) of…
After successfully reincarnating the A-Class from a mum’s taxi into a hot hatch, Mercedes have gone further by creating a hot four-door coupé sedan. The CLA looks like it is built off the same platform as the A-Class but, in actual fact, the two are very different. The test car had the optional Edition package,…
One of the most common behavioural biases is the tendency to be overoptimistic. Like the children in Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon who are all above average, we tend to overestimate our own skills and chances of success. This overestimation, in turn, leads to overly positive self-evaluations, which are often unrealistic – resulting in overconfidence. Confidence…
Senior finance executives are taking increased responsibility for analysing big data in ways that produce actionable insights into the customer base. Their involvement marks a shift from a traditional focus on reporting what happened in the past, to forecasting what needs to happen in the future. The motivation to do this is simple: to boost…
Do you balance, and report on, your books and accounts daily and monthly, as relevant? Most professionals will see this question as trivial, as we would have no option but to do that. The professional practice of accounting dictates that we do that, even though one is unlikely to find an accounting standard that prescribes…
An unexpectedly shrewd observation I heard from Lord Sebastian Coe at the Discovery Leadership Summit held recently in Sandton really got me thinking. Considered one of the best middle-distance runners of all time, the British Olympic champion set 12 world records over four distances, achieving four gold and three silver medals in the Olympics and…
Offshore equities are looking increasingly attractive: the MSCI World Index returned 39,7 per cent in rand terms during 2013. However, with the rand’s recent depreciation, emotions are once again running high, with fear and greed rampant and herd behaviour becoming evident. And to compound the excitement, it’s election time again. At the start of 2014,…
Education is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university”.1 Former president Nelson Mandela put it more simply by declaring that education is “the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. At the moment South Africa is definitely not…
