Simon’s stock tips

SASOL

A gut kick

asol’s interim results through 31 December were worse than expected, even as management called it “satisfactory”. That’s a gut kick to shareholders; some sense as to the destruction of the share price wouldn’t be amiss. Debt is higher than the market cap, so dividends were skipped and won’t be back soon. More pain was the downgrade of their debt by Moody’s (S&P kept its rating unchanged). In the immediate it’s moot, but as debt rolls over they’ll potentially pay higher costs. OPEC’s attempt in early March to get Russia to cut production failed, so Saudi Arabia (via oil company Saudi Aramco) started an oil war with Russia, selling oil at up to $10 under the market price. On 9 March oil fell 30% and Sasol