The news that Naspers expected to announce its black economic empowerment deal before the end of the year will set tongues wagging about who the likely suitors will be.
The one name that will likely feature prominently is that of Patrice Motsepe, the mining magnate.
Those in the know say that Motsepe has had discussions before with Naspers.
These had not gone far because Naspers had decided to wait for the information, communications and technology industries charter, which was finalised last year.
But the charter was then overtaken by the department of trade and industry's codes of good practice, which have yet to be finalised.
Naspers said yesterday that it expected the codes to be finalised soon and once this was done, the media group would announce its empowerment deal.
The group had not yet decided how the deal would look like but it would be broad-based.
It said its deal would include the company's black employees, black individual investors and empowerment companies.
Koos Bekker, the group chief executive, said "tens and thousands of individuals" would benefit from the transaction.
The group expects to announce the transaction before the end of the current financial year.
It will sell shares in unlisted local company Media24, which houses newspapers, magazines, online news, information services and MultiChoice, which controls the internet and pay television operations.
Whoever will buy the stake will have to fork out millions of rands. The electronic division, which includes pay television operations, contributes two-thirds of the group's total revenue and the print media puts in one-third of revenue base.
It seems as if companies are hoping that there will be fundamental changes in the codes that would reduce the strict requirements needed for compliance.
But there is no indication that the codes would change, especially the clauses targeting South African companies.
Partnerships between the government and private sector healthcare companies were one of the possible solutions to the growing gaps in the quality of service between state-owned and private healthcare facilities.
The increasing gap was best illustrated by the significant shift in the employment of healthcare professionals towards the private sector. An increasing number were also moving abroad.
This trend was crippling the public sector, according to Solly Benatar, the head of bioethics at the University of Cape Town.
Benatar was speaking at the Kagiso Securities conference on healthcare in Cape Town yesterday.
In the 1980s, 54 percent of doctors and 75 percent of nurses worked in the public sector.
These figures had since dropped to 33 percent for doctors and 50 percent for nurses.
One way to plug the gap is for government hospitals to negotiate management contracts with private sector healthcare companies.
This would include building maintenance, catering, security and laundry services.
But Sheila Themba, the director of public-private partnerships at the national treasury, said the government was sceptical of the value of such arrangements.
The treasury's private-public partnerships unit has commissioned a case study of Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital in Durban, where a 15-year management contract was awarded to the private sector.
The hospital's value to the state has been estimated at R4.5 billion.
The study is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
Themba said there were four healthcare partnerships at the inception stage, five in the process of a feasibility study, five at the procurement stage and three at negotiation level. Most are in Limpopo, the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape.
Some public hospitals are already renting out hospital beds to patients with medical aid.
Japie du Toit, the chief executive of the state's Groote Schuur Hospital, said the Western Cape health department had made available 230 hospital beds for private use, increasing revenue by more than 500 percent in five years.
Plans are under way to increase it to 500 beds once low-cost medical aid becomes a reality for uninsured state workers.
Gavin Pieterse has resigned as the chairman of the South African Wine Industry Trust (Sawit) to allow himself more time to build his business consultancy.
Pieterse is the second high-profile black business leader to step off the public platform within a week to focus on his business.
Last week mining magnate Patrice Motsepe said he would step down as president of the National African Federated Chambers of Commerce and Industry and Business Unity SA to put more effort into his businesses.
Pieterse will continue having an association with Sawit.
The trust has contracted him to help it find new funders in North America, as well as other potential international partners.
He was appointed chairman of Sawit three years after the trust was formed in 1999 to drive transformation and black economic empowerment in the industry.
Pieterse said he had recently concluded that he could not do justice to both his business interests and his obligations to the trust.
"While sad to leave an organisation that will go down in history as one having played a crucial role in the history of the South African wine industry, and has in many instances served as an enviable model for transformation in the local agricultural landscape, I know Sawit is in good hands," Pieterse said.