> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.businessbagel.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Roundup — Tuesday, 18 August 2026 - URL: https://www.businessbagel.com/the-roundup-tuesday-18-august-2026/ - Published: 2026-08-18T04:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-18T03:59:59.000Z - Author: Christian Maidman - Tags: The Roundup Today's edition Sparring Partners Good morning. In May, Spar's board met specially about a petition from its shop owners asking it to remove chairman Mike Bosman. Instead, the board chose to put its full confidence in him on the record. On Monday he resigned, and deputy chair Shirley Zinn resigned with him. The board says both still have its full support. The rest of today runs on the same asterisk: a business rescue declared substantially done at a company still losing money, an earnings collapse its owner says is accounting rather than trading, and a listing being priced off revenue nobody expects before 2028\. Let's get into it. --- MARKETS ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/97/24/9724ffa3-48e9-48a7-a5f7-e38b7d2c9b36/content/images/2026/08/markets--28-.png) --- SHELF LIFE ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/97/24/9724ffa3-48e9-48a7-a5f7-e38b7d2c9b36/content/images/2026/08/Article-spar--1.png) ## Spar's chairman and deputy chair resigned on the same morning, with the board's full support Mike Bosman took the Spar chair in December 2022, in the middle of a governance crisis that had just cost the group its previous chairman and chief executive within a month of each other. On 8 May the Spar National Council, the elected representatives of the independent shop owners who actually run the stores, petitioned the board to remove him. The board met specially, considered it, and placed its full confidence in him on the record. On Monday morning Bosman resigned, effective immediately, and Shirley Zinn resigned as deputy chair alongside him. **Who is where now:** - Lwazi Koyana, who chairs the risk committee, is interim chairman while the nominations committee runs a permanent search. - That committee has said what it is looking for: directors with direct retail and independent-retailer experience. - The board reaffirmed its full support for Spar's chief executive and finance chief, and says the turnaround plan and current guidance are unaffected. Zinn joined the board in February 2023 and ran the pay committee, where she brought in rules letting Spar claw back executive bonuses. The share was about 5% lower by late morning on Monday, at R43.20. [**Read the full story →**](https://www.businessbagel.com/spar-chairman-deputy-chair-resign/) --- STAMP OF APPROVAL ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/97/24/9724ffa3-48e9-48a7-a5f7-e38b7d2c9b36/content/images/2026/08/Article-post-office--1.png) ## The Post Office wants its rescue declared over, and its own boss says it is not fixed The South African Post Office went into business rescue in July 2023 to stop it being liquidated. Three years on, its rescue practitioners have asked the Pretoria High Court to declare the plan substantially implemented and end the process, having handed the organisation to a new board in June. The balance sheet backs them: what it owed creditors fell from about R8.7 billion to R440 million, and the books moved from a R7.9 billion hole to R840 million in the black. That cost 4,342 jobs and 366 branches. Acting chief executive Fathima Gany calls what comes next high care, a patient just out of intensive care and watched closely so it stays alive. The business still lost R71 million in the year to March 2026, and the R3.8 billion second slice of government money the rescue plan was built on never arrived. [**Read the full story →**](https://www.businessbagel.com/post-office-business-rescue-exit-high-care/) --- BAGEL BITE **Who patented the first loudspeaker design in 1877?** **A.** Ernst Siemens **B.** Chester W. Rice **C.** Edward W. Kellogg --- DOING THE ROUNDS ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/97/24/9724ffa3-48e9-48a7-a5f7-e38b7d2c9b36/content/images/2026/08/Article-blu-label--1.png) **Blu Label says its earnings fell more than 80% because of accounting, not trading.** It took control of Cell C in September, counted the operator inside the group for three months, then sold down at Cell C's listing. The bill landed on Friday: earnings per share swing from a 276.52 cent profit to a loss of about 540 cents. Blu Label also published its own figure excluding Cell C, and that came in at 75.33 cents, below the range it was meant to explain. [**Full story →**](https://www.businessbagel.com/blu-label-earnings-cell-c-accounting/) **South Africa's biggest apartment developer is heading off the JSE.** Balwin's founders and the Government Employees Pension Fund are offering R4.35 a share in cash to take it private, roughly 41% above its average price over the previous 180 trading days. Balwin listed in 2015 to make raising money easier; eleven years on, the consortium's reasons are thin trading, a share price below book value and the cost of staying listed. One analyst's verdict on listed home builders here: the standalone experiment has effectively ended. [**Full story →**](https://www.businessbagel.com/balwin-jse-delisting-pic-buyout/) **Wall Street is pricing Anthropic's listing off the revenue it hopes to earn in 2028.** Investors usually work off next year's sales. Reuters reports the AI company is telling people it could book $190 billion to $200 billion of revenue that year, against the $47 billion annual pace it disclosed in May. The reference points being used are Palantir, valued at 53 times this year's expected sales, and SpaceX and Cloudflare at 41.6 times. Anthropic filed its listing papers confidentially in June and has not commented. [**Full story →**](https://www.businessbagel.com/anthropic-ipo-2028-revenue-forecast/) **Sanlam Investments handed nearly R400 billion of stock-picking money to Ninety One and is backing two ideas with the rest.** The transfer went through in February and Sanlam Investments still manages more than R1.2 trillion. Chief executive Carl Roothman told News24 the trigger was the 2022 rule change lifting how much of a retirement fund may go offshore, from 30% to 45%. He now sees the growth in index funds, which hold about 11% of South African unit trust money against more than half in the United States, and in private lending packaged for global investors. [**Full story →**](https://www.businessbagel.com/sanlam-investments-index-funds-private-credit/) --- WEATHER ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/97/24/9724ffa3-48e9-48a7-a5f7-e38b7d2c9b36/content/images/2026/08/weather--24-.png) --- BAGEL GAMES ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/97/24/9724ffa3-48e9-48a7-a5f7-e38b7d2c9b36/content/images/2026/08/Wordle--27-.png) Have you got what it takes to win today’s Wordle? [**Play here →**](https://puzzel.org/en/wordle/play?p=-P-FFVvv9t%5F-bH%5FYuun6&ref=businessbagel.com) --- THE ANSWER As for the Bagel Bite, the answer is: **A.** **Ernst Siemens** Siemens filed German Patent No. 2355 on December 14, 1877, for a moving coil transducer using a diaphragm to reproduce sound. His design built on the moving coil principle he had patented earlier in 1874 and became an important foundation for dynamic loudspeakers. Decades later, Chester W. Rice and Edward W. Kellogg developed the moving coil direct radiator loudspeaker that closely resembles the basic design widely used today. --- That's your Tuesday wrap. Enjoyed it? Forward it on, a friend can subscribe in a click. Written by the Business Bagel crew.