AFTER THE BELL: Business is betting on a post-ANC Joburg — unless ego gets in the way

Finally, after a very frantic few days, I think the dust is beginning to clear a little bit after our local government elections.

And while some people are still letting their egos talk for them (will Herman Mashaba really give up the chance for this party to play a leading role in Joburg just because of Helen Zille – and will his party let him?) I suspect that around many of the better water coolers this morning there was some discussion about the results.

One of the strange things about this election was that for the first time we really saw big businesses getting quite involved. And not just through proxy groups, but directly.

People like Ninety One’s Hendrik du Toit responded to direct questions about Joburg in particular, saying they believed it could be “turned around relatively quickly”.

Business Leadership SA CEO Busisiwe Mavuso spoke about how business was ready to jump in and help.

And there were pretty stark warnings, including from this Jozi resident, about how business might react if there was no change in that city.

Now, we’ve queued, braaied and counted.

And we wait for the coalition negotiations to get going properly.

I would imagine that for the property companies it’s been a rather busy weekend. CEOs would have been distracted from their usual mountain bike trail by the IEC app, while chief investment officers decided that while the Springboks’ scoreboard was moving more quickly, the election numbers were more important.

Redefine Properties has huge exposure to Joburg. It said during its annual results a couple of weeks ago that its office vacancies in Joburg were still more than 11.5%.

Obviously its Cape Town vacancies are much lower than that.

Another big office firm, Growthpoint, has been battling a high vacancy rate in Gauteng too.

They have also, in a way, tried to respond to the dysfunction in Joburg rationally. The firm has led the development of the huge Waterfall City development in Midrand.

You can imagine how anyone trying to manage their company’s property in Joburg would jump at that.

I bet those on the top WhatsApp group at the Spear Real Estate Investment Trust were looking at some other numbers too.

Their strategy is slightly different from most other firms. They literally invest only in the Western Cape.

If you were looking for an example of business following politics, this is it.

I’m sure they were looking, not at the municipal figures coming in over the weekend, but at numbers pointing to the Western Cape as a whole.

They might have wondered what would happen to all of their investments across that province in 2029, and these elections are the best indication of what will happen then.

While one can never really presume which political party any individual supports, given that we all make decisions for different reasons, they probably looked at the results there and felt they had very little to worry about.

And they were probably as unsurprised as you are to find that all of those middle-class semigrants who have moved from Gauteng to Cape Town over the past six years have registered to vote and did not decide to aid the ANC in its spectacular non-recovery in that province.

The strange thing about these elections is that besides a few obvious places, this result does not dictate who will be governing in which metro.

All it has done is set up the playing field for the negotiations that are under way.

There is a funny duality to how business might see the various parties at the moment.

In the past, people would mutter about “business-friendly policies” with reference to the DA. And considering that ActionSA’s leader once chaired the Free Market Foundation, they might put them in that category too.

But the ANC is also the party of “stability”, the party that is, oddly, leading the process of reform in government. Which is being supported by, that’s right, big business.

I think for all of the careful talk about “recovery” and “change” in Joburg by people in business, I suspect what they really meant was, “when the ANC in Joburg is removed from power”.

And this really illustrates the difference between the sort of “business-friendly” ANC in national government, and the ANC-led grouping in the last Joburg administration who gave every possible impression that they didn’t know what they were doing and didn’t care.

It is a good reminder of how important individuals can be.

As President, Cyril Ramaphosa reassured business. As mayor, Dada Morero just disappointed them (and a rather large number of residents).

I think I understand what the rational choices should be for the various parties involved in these negotiations. And generally speaking, all of those options would probably help business.

 However, as anyone in any business negotiation will tell you, ego can take over.