There are results, as we have seen in recent weeks, and there are results, and SPAR’s fall very much into the latter category: revenue for the year ended September up 24.5% to R92.2billion, with operating profit up 12% to R2.6billion. The boost in turnover was due in part to recent acquisitions – notably 60% of SPAR in Switzerland. On the downside, Switzerland has not been a notably sterling performer for the Group, and management there are on notice to bring the tops of their sterling alpine stockings in closer proximity to the bottom of their lederhosen. Also on the downside – although probably a good move – The Verdant One has closed its Zimbabwe DC, and will now supply the independent stores there from its Gauteng facility. And back to the upside: SPAR has announced that it will soon be entering a JV with Sri Lankan outfit Ceylon Biscuits. For details of the JV, which is a fairly opaque arrangement at present, stay posted.

Comment: One in the eye for analysts who just a short year ago were characterising SPAR as too safe a bet for too much exuberant interest.

So how did that Dis-Chem listing go? Pretty well if you’re Ivan or Lynette Salzman or their immediate, share-owning circle, not so much if you liquidated a few of your other retail shares to hop onto the Dis-Chem express when it left the station last week. The decision was taken, you will remember, to exclude small investors from the offering, allocating all 237million shares to large institutional investors. This mean that Dis-Chem customers and staff were unable to enjoy the benefits of the immediate 27% hike in the share price, but more importantly, it failed to garner for Dis-Chem the good will it was hoping would result from the offering. Dis-Chem’s rapid growth trajectory – typical of a business at this stage in its lifecycle – is promising good returns right now.

Comment: Given the time it took for Dis-Chem to list, it seems there was always a certain reluctance on the part of the owners to give up control – and this seems borne out by the nature of the eventual offering.

Catering this week to the primitive hominids who roam the open spaces of the African continent are Checkers, who have just launched a Banting Revolution range of private label goodies. The Banting Diet, as you are doubtless aware, is championed by leggy sports doctor Tim Noakes and adored by the millions of South Africans who line up when the boerie is dished out at the braai but ignore the potato salad with its bits of parsley and its Crosse & Blackwell mayonnaise. The Banting Revolution includes carb-conscious porkies, cauliflower mash with something they’re calling “real” butter, three different flavoured sparkling waters, apple cider vinegar which cures literally everything , gluten-free bread and flour, xylitol, stevia, something called psyllium husks, and anthrax. OK, it doesn’t contain anthrax.

Comment: The Banting thing (which is similar in many ways to the Atkins fad that turned previously chunky ex-classmates into tanned and desiccated shadows of their former selves a few years back) is clearly a tidy little earner, or Checkers wouldn’t be getting into it.

All British American Tobacco SA (Batsa) really wants is to pay more of its hard-earned to the South African Revenue  Service (SARS). And the only things standing in its way are illicit ciggies, which currently make up about 24% of the local trade. Batsa argue that it directly or indirectly contributes around R14.5billion in taxes and excise duties to the government coffers, and that this could be closer to R20billion were illegal fags taken off the shelves. All of this by way of making its case that the government should think long and hard about requiring all cigarettes, illicit or other, to be sold in packs unsullied by colourful branding or exotic desert scenes. Batsa may have a point: the trade in illicit cigarettes trebled in Oz after plain packaging was introduced there. This at a time when Batsa is coming under pressure from the parent business for its production costs, which run around 20% higher here in the Beloved Country.

Comment: A tricky business in more ways than one, if you catch our drift.

A pleasing set of numbers from Pioneer Foods for the year through September, with revenue up 12% to R20.6billion, and operating profit up 6% to R2.3billion. This on the back of cost cutting in the Group, and in an environment of higher input costs resulting from drought and a weaker rand, and a straitened consumer market. So much for the home front. In other news, Pioneer is acquiring for a coyly undisclosed sum a 49.89% stake in Weetabix East Africa, a business it will now share with Weetabix UK, who are retaining the majority. This is Pioneer’s opening gambit in East Africa, though not its first acquisition globally – there was the purchase for R133million of UK outfit Streamfoods in August. Weetabix is a biggie for Pioneer: Weet-Bix is one of the business’ growth-leading “power brands”, which include Bokomo, Liqui-Fruit , Sasko, Spekko, Ceres, White Star and Safari.

Comment: And another business forged in the dust and donder of the home market goes global. Nice one.

And here we are, wondering somehow not hypothetically what a, no, the Trump presidency will mean for the Beloved Country. Madness. But anyway. Trumpism is predicted in some quarters to be an expensive disaster for the US, causing productivity to decline and driving inflation skyward, and this combined with rising trade barriers would constrain US spending in economies like ours. We’d also likely lose millions in US aid from an increasingly isolationist regime (Trump has threatened to pull out of the WTO), although – thank goodness – the Africa Growth and Opportunities Act, which allows us R16.6billion annual in duty-free exports, will stand for the next 10 years. Another threat is rate hikes in the US, a stronger dollar and thus a weaker rand. But none of this is set in stone – if Trump’s infrastructure spending and tax cuts do indeed boost the US economy, this could be good for commodities and for commodity currencies like the dear old ZAR. But as Paul Krugman believes that the infrastructure spending is pie in the sky, don’t hold your breath.

Comment: You know what? We survived Malan, Verwoerd, Vorster, and Botha. We can survive another racist sociopath.

A smoking half for Tongaat Hulett, whose sugar business generated operating profit of R825million, up from R477million in 2015 for the six months through September. Group revenue was up 11.7% to R8.5billion, while operating profit grew 5.8% to R1.35billion. Nice.

A cracker of a year for upstart newcomer, sort of, Rhodes Food, which grew turnover 37.2% to R4.1billion on a spate of acquisitions, which contributed R651.3million to sales. Profit after tax increased by R120million to R290million.