If you asked me when I was last in a CNA - I would be lying if I could remember . Yet here we have Astoria together with others buying 167 branches and taking on 1000 plus staff. Okay, the debt stays with Edcon- but what on earth can one make of a business which seems to be nothing in particualr to anybody AND which seems to have forgotten that we live in a digital world- but - perhaps, you say, the new business owners will have a brilliant plan to ensure a success? Well, if they do, this will be the outsider who wins the Grand National - and , yes outsiders do win it - but you can count their success on the fingers of one hand, and I suspect the chances of success here are about the same. And then there is the small matter of discipline in capital allocation. Is this really an example of that - or what it looks like - a value trap?.
... View more