22 August 2008
column
Johannesburg — FINANCIAL advisers usually tell one never to invest in unlisted shares.
One doesn't have the transparency to view and question the finances of the company one is buying into that one has with a listed company. And it is usually easier to sell a share on the JSE , where liquidity is much higher, than the over-the-counter market.
Maybe this is melodramatic, but why then has Vodacom not offered a timetable for listing -- especially if it is going offer shares to the previously disadvantaged who can ill afford to invest in the more opaque world of over-the-counter share trading?
Then there is the five-year lock-in period on trade in the shares for black shareholders.
This seems a long time.
Directors of listed companies often have lock-in periods for share options of three years.
Some of the benefits of buying the shares are the discount, the probability Vodacom will continue to rise in value, and a promise to pay dividends of at least 50% of its after-tax profit, which was R8bn last year.
The Bottom Line is edited by Edward West.
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