If OM offloads the Zimpapers shares they hold, and perhaps cause a loss of share value and reluctance of buyers to purchase said shares, are we being led to belive that Zimpapers board will react with nothing more than a ‘oh, bummer’ response and carry on as usual.

‘If one buys shares in a company listed on the stock exchange, that money does not go to the company at all but to the other party who is selling.’ wrote Ngatifungei Nepfungwa.

So, OM holds these Zimpaper shares, hoping to sell them and make a whole load of money, but they will not be actually making profit from Zimpapers! I ask if a company who suddenly loses it’s major shareholder is not going to be in financial and operational trouble?

As for sensationalising issues that become grist to Mugabes’ mill, I find that no excuse for pussyfooting around the mans’ warped sensibilities. More-so when he is a past master at creating his own mountains out of molehills. So what’s he going to complain about with respect to OM/Zimpapers? That somebody is trying to derail his party propaganda machine? I don’t think he’ll garner too much sympathy on that score.

Well, it is a worry off my mind that I can now look to buying shares (through an agent – morally cleaner apparently) in Chinese arms manufacturers, dolphin unfriendly tuna factories, philipine sweat shop traders, Japanese whaling enterprises, a variety of diamond companies whose sources are questionable – all in the knowledge that I’m not actually helping those companies stay in existence. Those shares are there simply to make me, and/or my agent, money.

The second paragraph of the petition is just too full of unnecessary vocabulary which I don’t necessarily feel aids the cause at all. No one, and I mean not a single person, can actually prove that OM is arming or funding Zimpapers simply because they hold shares in OM. It’s all nice and well to be angry about what has and continues to happen in Zimbabwe, but if change is going to be achieved, there is no need to sensationalise issues. It is this sensationalism that Zanu PF feeds on and in most cases has actually helped to sustain their hold on power.

Once again I will state that this petition is a misrepresentation of facts regarding the OM/Zimpapers which does little to help the situation on the ground.

This comment was made by one of the signatories on the petition, and I tend to agree with them…

ONLY THE BITE OF PUBLIC OUTCRY WILL FORCE THEM TO RECONSIDER THEIR INVESTMENTS

The purpose of the petition is to bring OM’s attention to the fact that people are objecting to their involvement with “tainted goods”. Just as OM can decide which company’s shares they want to buy, so can the ordinary investor decide if they still want to deal with OM or not, after this.

What, then, is Old Mutual worried about if asked to stop their share association with Zimpapers if the public and Old Mutual customers petition them to do so? The Zimbabwe situation may require rationale, part of which must be based on morality and principle. It is these facets which Old Mutual is being taken to task with. Morality and principles cost nothing, and this is exactly what it will cost both OM and Zimpapers, as has been pointed out.

OM can’t be absolved from being part and parcel of keeping Zimpapers’ presses alive by pointing fingers at others, such as advertisers, as being the more guilty.

Nepfungwa

I have some little sums invested with Old Mutual in South Africa. I am very upset about the company “investing” in such poor perfomers whichever way you look at it. How much return is their investment on these papers considering that not many people buy these papers any more and also that most would be able to get it “free” online? I am also concerned that perharps my money is inderectely or directly invested with these papers whom I have a lot of reservations about. I am wary about newspapers irrespective of who owns them since there is always biase in the reporting.

The mange-tout and stolen farm analogue is exactly an example of the misrepresentation I am talking about. The relationship between OM and Zimpapers is nowhere close to that example. The only time it will be is if Old Mutual advertises in the Herald or Sunday Mail, something they can do even if they don’t hold a single share (hundreds other businesses do so anyway)

The people who fund Zimpapers are the ordinary man on the street who buy the paper because they are “only interested” in the classified section and “don’t read the news”. It is all those who sell their cell phones and print cartridges through the classified columns of the Herald who finance Zimpapers more that Old Mutual can ever do simply by holding their shares.

Protest for the sake of protest at times strengthens the hand it is suppose to fight. The Zimbabwean situation requires rationale. I am not saying we must rationalise murder, rape, corruption and all the henious acts perpetrated on our people in the name of sovereignty but our reaction to such should be based on valid facts which fit the argument.

I will again say, Old Mutual can not and does not fund Zimpapers simply by holding their shares, neither will they by buying some more. This petition should perhaps be pressurising OM to use their shareholding to influence the editorial policy of Zimpapers (if they can without being told to leave the country)

If Sainsburys were to inform me that they were buying their mange-tout from a ZANU-PF stolen farm, but it’s all above board because they actually buy it through a middleman, does that excuse them. And as a purchaser of said legumes would I feel absolved.

By the way, I signed the petition, and I take care in purchasing my mange-tout!

The first argument I will put across is what needs to be appreciated from an investment point of view is that Old Mutual does NOT fund Zimpapers by way of a shareholding. If one buys shares in a company listed on the stock exchange, that money does not go to the company at all but to the other party who is selling.

The second point is Old Mutual manages millions of dollars on behalf of mostly pension funds and other policy holders. There is absolutely no way that Old Mutual can reliquish their shareholding in Zimpapers without seriously financially hurting the same ordinary person this petition is supposed to be fighting for.

On the whole, people need to understand how stock markets work before raising a petition such as this. I will say again Zimpapers does not benefit a cent from Old Mutual’s shareholding unless they get a loan maybe by way of a bond or the float a rights issue which OM will take up.

Ngatifungei nepfungwa kwete nemwoyo