S Africa builder sees prospects in graves

Johannesburg

IN about five years, South Africa's best-performing property developer expects to make as much from the dead as it does from the living.

Calgro M3, which has gained more than any other stock on the Johannesburg exchange over the past six years, forecasts that an expanding cemetery unit will match the profit generated by its main housing construction business as early as 2020, managing director Wikus Lategan said.

"The cemetery contracts will grow exponentially," Mr Lategan said at his Johannesburg office on Dec 14. "South African culture favours traditional interment over cremation and elders that might have been buried in their village are increasingl…