Mahube Infrastructure has released the offer circular (JSE: MHB)
This relates to the firm intention announcement published on 9 December
After a few delays, Mahube Infrastructure has finally distributed the circular related to the cash offer by Sustent Holdings of R5.50 per Mahube share.
Sustent Holdings is a special purpose vehicle put together by a group of investors, including a fund managed by Mergence Investment Managers.
Mahube is off the beaten track on the JSE, so you would easily be forgiven for not being familiar with it. Mahube owns three solar PV farms and two wind farms. These assets sell electricity to Eskom under 20-year power purchase agreements.
The company listed as a special purpose acquisition company (remember those?) in 2015, with R500 million in capital raised as part of that listing. Due to the difficulties in trying to build a small cap on the local market, that was the first and last time that it raised capital.
With the share price languishing at a deep discount to the net asset value (a whopping R10.25 as at August 2025), it’s not a huge surprise that an acquirer pounced on this thing.
The 30-day VWAP prior to the cautionary announcement in August was R4.13, so the offer price of R5.50 is a significant premium to that level.
However, the offer is so far below the net asset value per share that it even comes in below the fair value range determined by the independent expert. The expert has guided a range of R6.42 to R6.72 per share.
This means that the offer price is unfair, but reasonable. You won’t see this too often.
Given the lower historical traded prices and the premium being offered to shareholders, the board has proposed the scheme to shareholders to give them a chance to exit at this price.
Weirdly, the share price closed 13.6% higher on the day at R6.03 on thin volumes. It flaps around between R5.50 and R6.00, as though some shareholders are betting on a better offer arriving at some point.
The other angle here is that these investors might be looking to back the story over the longer term, as there is the ability under the scheme to make a “continuation election” to retain shares.
The scheme meeting is scheduled for 15 April.
MC Mining: heavy losses and a suspension of operations at Uitkomst (JSE: MCZ)
Full focus is on the Makhado project
MC Mining released results for the six months to December 2025. The numbers are unfortunately still in the red, with a headline loss per share of 1.22 cents (vs. a loss of 1.83 cents in the comparable period).
Thanks to lower sales volumes at Uitkomst and weaker thermal coal prices, revenue fell by 22%. But here’s the really bad news: they recognised a gross loss of $4.5 million vs. a gross loss of $4.2 million in the comparable period.
Your eyes are not deceiving you – they lose money on everything they sell, even before we get to operating expenses.
Clearly, the existing operations are broken. They are so broken that the board is suspending operations at Uitkomst Colliery. There is literally no point in operating with a gross loss, something you’ll almost never see.
The only reason there is any value in this company is because of the Makhado Project, with hot commissioning scheduled for April 2026. Kinetic Development Group has been subscribing for shares in the company to fund this opportunity. This is a premium hard coking coal opportunity that should change the trajectory of the group.
To give you an idea of how important it is, the share price is up 208% over 12 months despite the losses!
MTN Uganda keeps delivering (JSE: MTN)
This has been their most dependable (alas, not the biggest) African subsidiary
MTN has released results for MTN Uganda for the year ended December 2025. You won’t see the year-on-year recovery that is visible in Nigeria and Ghana, mainly because Uganda wasn’t broken to begin with!
MTN Uganda grew total subscribers by 10% and service revenue by 13.4%. EBITDA increased by 17.0%, with EBITDA margin moving 160 basis points higher to 53.8%.
Adjusted profit after tax was up 23.1%. This is actually the correct metric to use, rather than the 5.8% increase in profit after tax that was impacted by a tax settlement.
The total dividend increased by 27.2%, so there’s also no shortage of cash in the system. This is despite the 28.5% increase in capex to take advantage of opportunities in the country.
Uganda is expecting economic growth of 6.5% to 7% in 2026. Imagine if we could get anywhere close to that in South Africa?
Will Remgro’s trading statement prove to be useful? (JSE: REM)
HEPS is the wrong metric here
Remgro has released a trading statement for the six months to December 2025. They use HEPS as their metric, rather than net asset value (NAV) per share. This is an issue because the market values Remgro (an investment holding company) based on its NAV, not its HEPS.
You might think that a strong positive move in HEPS also means a solid uptick in NAV, but it isn’t always that simple. We will have to wait for the results to come out on 25 March to be sure.
In the meantime, we know that HEPS will be between 36% and 41% higher for the interim period. One would certainly hope that such a positive move also translates into decent NAV growth.
SA Corporate Real Estate has a few (thousand) apartments to sell you (JSE: SAC)
This is an unusual fund by JSE standards
SA Corporate Real Estate has released results for the year ended December 2025. Although distributable income per share was only up by 6%, they increased the payout ratio and moved the distribution higher by 9%. Net property income was up by 6.2% though, so I would see this as mid-single digits growth on a sustainable basis.
The balance sheet is stable, with the loan-to-value ratio of 42.1% being very similar to 42.0% in the prior year. Thanks to a decrease in the cost of debt, net finance costs improved by 4.7% vs. the prior year.
Here’s a blemish on the numbers though: the net asset value (NAV) per share decreased by 5.3% to 420 cents. The new independent valuer is described as having “more prudent valuation assumptions” which is rather interesting. There were other factors as well, like the issue of shares during the year at a discount to NAV per share.
The company has no remaining exposure to office properties, other than the one they occupy themselves. This leaves them with a portfolio that looks similar to what investors are used to seeing (i.e. a mix of retail and industrial with positive rental reversions), along with a residential portfolio that is very unusual among the REITs.
If you’ve ever managed a buy-to-let investment that has made you feel tired, then get ready for this: SA Corporate Real Estate has 15,600 apartments! 65% are suburban and 35% are inner-city apartments.
They are targeting 3,000 apartment sales over the next three years, with 1,000 planned for 2026 for a total sales value of R460 million.
In the 818 apartment sales achieved in 2025, they received prices that were 87% better than the acquisition price and 35% above the book value. That’s obviously a great return, but it’s a lot of work to manage this portfolio.
Another unusual element of the portfolio is the exposure to Zambia, where the macroeconomic picture improved tremendously in the past year. Distributiable income was up by double digits in 2026.
What is your view on opportunistic dealmaking by property funds, like the decision to buy the large portfolio of apartments and sell them over time?
Texton’s NAV per share was impacted by a return of capital to shareholders (JSE: TEX)
But this doesn’t explain the dip in distributable income per share
Texton Property Fund released results for the six months to December 2025. The fund has been returning capital to shareholders, so this naturally leads to a decrease in the net asset value per share, as the company is literally choosing to make itself smaller.
In September 2025, they declared a return of capital of 63.87 cents. This explains most (but not all) of the decrease in NAV per share, from 574.61 cents as at June 2025 to 503.23 cents as at December 2025.
The dip in performance continues in other metrics, with distributable earnings impacted by asset sales in the UK. Even though the South African portfolio’s net operating income was up by 4%, the group’s distributable earnings fell by 4.2%. Distributable income per share was down by a similar percentage.
Notably, the loan-to-value ratio has moved up from 25.3% to 29.7% due to the outflow of cash to shareholders. If you remove cash from the balance sheet, it effectively increases the leverage in the system even if the debt balances are steady.
York Timber generated far more cash in this period (JSE: YRK)
HEPS growth is positive, but not by much
York Timber released a voluntary trading statement for the six months to December 2025. The fact that this is “voluntary” tells you that the movement in HEPS is less than 20%.
They guide a HEPS uplift of between 1.82% and 6.78%. There’s a number further up the income statement that is concerning though, with EBITDA before fair value adjustments dropping by between 41% and 46%. The fair value adjustments cause significant distortions, so this is an important metric that has gone sharply the wrong way.
Cash generated from operations is a much prettier story, up by between 127% and 132%.
There are some wild swings here, so investors will need to read carefully when the results come out on 31 March 2026.
Nibbles:
Director dealings:
Des de Beer has bought shares in Lighthouse Properties (JSE: LTE) worth R10.2 million.
The non-executive chair of Supermarket Income REIT (JSE: SRI) bought shares worth R2.1 million.
Grindrod announced sales of shares by a few directors and senior execs. Two of the sales covered only the taxable portion of share awards, but there was also a sale worth R287k that wasn’t related to taxes.
The CEO of Argent Industrial (JSE: ART) bought shares worth nearly R40k.
Fortress Real Estate (JSE: FFB) will be offering investors a scrip dividend alternative, known as a capitalisation issue. Simply, this means the ability to receive the value of the dividend in the form of more shares in Fortress rather than cash. This helps Fortress retain cash on the balance sheet and is best thought of as a miniature rights issue. The shares will be priced at a 3% discount to the 30-day VWAP, so they are trying to incentivise shareholders to take the shares.
Exemplar REITail (JSE: EXP) released a circular related to the proposed changes to the share-based incentive scheme. They want to create an “equity ownership mindset” among key employees by being able to issue shares that vest immediately. The circular also includes a general authority to issue shares for cash (up to 10% of shares in issue based on the AGM in June 2025), with the company having identified a pipeline of acquisitions and development opportunities. These steps are dilutive to existing shareholders, so investors in this company will want to review the circular carefully.
Africa Bitcoin Corporation (JSE: BAC) announced some key metrics in the loan book at Altvest Credit Opportunities Fund. The book is now sitting with assets of R502 million, although the current loan book is R267 million vs. cash on hand of R156 million. I’m not quite sure why those two numbers don’t add up to R502 million. The average loan size is R5.9 million with an average term of 43 months and pricing of prime + 7.62%, giving you an idea of what it costs to borrow money as an SME. The provision for bad debts as a percentage of the loan book is 5.56%, showing you exactly why the cost of borrowing needs to be so high for SMEs.
ISA Holdings (JSE: ISA) renewed the cautionary announcement related to a non-binding expression of interest received from a potential offeror for the shares in the company. Negotiations between the parties are ongoing. At this stage, this isn’t a firm intention to make an offer, hence the need for shareholders to exercise caution.
A now-viral comment from actor Timothée Chalamet reignited an old cultural debate: do classical art forms like opera and ballet still matter?
Earlier this week, my social media feeds inexplicably exploded with clips of famous actors doing ballet – from pre-Spiderman Tom Holland in rehearsal for Billy Elliott, to Patrick Swayze and his seemingly gravity-defying jumps. While this was a refreshing change of pace from the usual mixture of American politics and AI doomsday theories that populate my feed, I knew immediately that there was nothing random about this algorithm shift.
People were deliberately seeking out and posting these videos, some of which were decades old. They were making a point, and that could only mean one thing. Somewhere, a person of influence had said something controversial, and now the arts community was up in arms.
It didn’t take me long to track down the culprit: this unexpected cultural debate was sparked by an offhand remark from Dune star Timothée Chalamet.
Foot-in-mouth
The discussion – public and filmed – was about the future of cinema. Chalamet (who is currently hoping to get the Oscar nod for his latest film, Marty Supreme), was explaining why he feels protective of the medium he works in and why he wants to keep films culturally relevant in an era when audiences have more entertainment options than ever.
For some reason, he decided to make that point by saying this:
“I don’t want to be working in ballet, or opera, or things where it’s like, ‘hey, keep this thing alive, even though like no one cares about this anymore’. All respect to the ballet and opera people. I just lost 14 cents in viewership.”
Perhaps Chalamet merely meant to emphasise his point about cinema’s continuing popularity. But once the clip began circulating online, the reaction was swift. Opera houses, ballet companies and performers pointed out (sometimes politely, sometimes less so) that the art forms in question have survived centuries of social change, global wars and technological revolutions.
Some even made use of Chalamet’s foot-in-mouth moment to sell more seats:
Some critics also noted the irony of the situation. After all, Chalamet comes from a family with deep ties to the performing arts.
His mother, Nicole Flender, trained as a dancer, and his sister, Pauline Chalamet, also studied dance before pursuing acting. Due to his mother’s connections to ballet, Timothée spent his childhood in a federally subsidised artists’ building in Manhattan. He was also fast-tracked into the storied La Guardia High School of the Performing Arts thanks to his mother’s occupation.
Ballet, in other words, is not exactly an unfamiliar discipline in the Chalamet household – in fact, it is one that seems to have given young Timothée more than one boost up the ladder.
Incidentally, his alma mater also had thoughts on his statement:
Nothing quite like being called out by your old high school principal on a public platform to humble you. Have some aloe vera for that burn, Timothée.
In fairness to Chalamet, he probably didn’t expect to trigger a global discussion about the relevance of classical art forms. Internet controversies rarely begin with that level of ambition. But if opera is truly an art form that nobody cares about anymore, it has been surviving that indifference for a remarkably long time. After all, it’s been around for more than 400 years.
How opera conquered Europe
Opera began in late 16th century Italy, as the result of a curious intellectual experiment. A group of writers and musicians in Florence became fascinated with ancient Greek theatre and began wondering whether those plays had once been sung rather than spoken. Their theory wasn’t entirely accurate, but the creative misunderstanding produced something unexpected: a new form of performance in which music and drama were fused into a single narrative experience. They named their new invention opera, which is the Italian word for “work”.
Early operas were small affairs, staged in aristocratic courts with modest orchestras and simple staging. Yet the concept spread quickly. By the 17th century, public opera houses were appearing across Italy, allowing audiences beyond the nobility to attend performances. Before long the format had travelled across Europe, where composers began experimenting with increasingly elaborate musical storytelling.
The plots were rarely subtle. Opera thrived on grand emotions and high stakes: doomed romances, political betrayals, supernatural interventions, mistaken identities, tragic misunderstandings, and the occasional character dramatically collapsing after a poisoned drink. If modern cinema thrives on spectacle and emotional intensity, opera perfected the formula centuries earlier.
It also produced early celebrities. Opera singers became some of the most famous performers of their era, drawing crowds that travelled between cities to hear them sing. Fans debated their favourite voices, critics wrote detailed reviews of performances, and rivalries between singers became minor cultural events in their own right.
By the 19th century, opera had grown into a fully developed cultural ecosystem, complete with elaborate theatres, passionate audiences, and composers who wrote music designed to push the limits of the human voice. The art form would evolve repeatedly over the next century, but its core attraction remained consistent. Opera offered audiences a combination of storytelling, music, and spectacle that was difficult to replicate anywhere else.
Which helps explain why certain performers eventually became legends. One of the most famous of them all was a woman named Maria Callas.
The divine diva
Maria Callas was born in New York in 1923 to Greek immigrant parents. Her birth name – Maria Kalogeropoulos – was eventually shortened to the more stage-friendly Callas.
As a teenager she moved with her mother to Greece, where she studied singing at the Athens Conservatory. Teachers quickly realised that her voice was unusual. It possessed an extraordinary range, capable of navigating both delicate lyrical passages and dramatic climaxes that would overwhelm many other singers. Technical ability alone, however, does not explain why Callas became famous.
Opera had long produced impressive vocalists, but Callas approached performance with something closer to an actor’s sensibility. She treated each role as a dramatic character rather than simply a musical challenge. When she stepped onto the stage, she wasn’t just delivering a sequence of difficult notes. She was inhabiting a story – and audiences noticed immediately.
During the 1950s, Callas performed at some of the most prestigious opera houses in the world, including Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, London’s Royal Opera House, and New York’s Metropolitan Opera House. Critics praised her dramatic intensity, while fans began referring to her with a reverent nickname: La Divina – the divine one.
Her performances helped revive a repertoire known as bel canto opera, a 19th century style that had largely fallen out of fashion. Through her interpretations of composers like Bellini and Donizetti, Callas brought these works back into the spotlight and inspired opera companies around the world to stage them again.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, her once-powerful voice began to deteriorate. The exact reasons remain debated; some blamed the demanding roles she performed in quick succession, while others pointed to the dramatic weight loss she underwent during the height of her fame. Whatever the cause, her vocal decline happened quickly. By the mid-1960s her performing career had largely ended, yet the legend – and the effect she had on her artform – endured.
Recordings of her performances continue to circulate decades after her death in 1977, and many opera historians still consider Callas one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. She helped redefine what audiences expected from opera performers by proving that emotional storytelling could be just as important as vocal power.
Not the moment for a cheap shot
This brings us back to Chalamet’s awkward remark.
Every generation seems convinced that certain art forms are dying. Theatre was supposedly doomed by cinema. Cinema was supposedly doomed by television. Television was supposedly doomed by streaming. Streaming, according to some observers, is now busy undermining the film industry itself.
Creative industries have always existed in a state of mild existential anxiety. Opera and ballet are not exceptions. They require large orchestras, highly trained singers or dancers, elaborate sets, and audiences willing to sit through a three-hour performance in a language they may not understand. These are not the kinds of things that are designed for the pace of modern attention spans, nor do they easily adapt to the algorithmic logic of online platforms.
Yet despite these challenges, many opera houses continue to fill seats. New productions are staged every year. Young singers train for years, often decades, to master the craft. Somewhere in the world tonight, a performer will step onto a stage and deliver an aria that audiences have been listening to for centuries.
In a moment when many artists worry about the future of creative work, from artificial intelligence generating images to streaming platforms reshaping entire industries, it might be worth remembering that the arts have always depended on a fragile ecosystem of mutual influence. Film borrows from theatre. Theatre borrows from literature. Music borrows from all of them.
Opera itself began as an experiment inspired by ancient drama, and over time it shaped the development of stage performance, orchestral music, and even cinematic storytelling. Artists like Maria Callas did more than simply preserve a tradition. They transformed it.
Which is why dismissing another art form has always felt slightly misguided, especially when it comes from someone working in the arts themselves. The creative world is less like a competition and more like a long conversation stretching across centuries. Every generation inherits the work of the last, whether it realises it or not.
Opera has been part of that conversation for more than 400 years. And if history is any guide, we’ll probably still be listening to our favourite arias long after the latest internet controversy has faded into silence.
About the author: Dominique Olivier
Dominique Olivier is the founder of human.writer, where she uses her love of storytelling and ideation to help brands solve problems.
She is a weekly columnist in Ghost Mail and collaborates with The Finance Ghost on Ghost Mail Weekender, a Sunday publication designed to help you be more interesting.She now also writes a regular column for Daily Maverick.
MTN Rwanda swings from losses to profits (JSE: MTN)
Revenue and EBITDA margin have both improved
If you dig through the MTN Rwanda results, you’ll find restatements that impact the comparability of numbers and make things more complicated. But you’ll also find a profit after tax of Rwf 10.8 billion, which is a whole lot better than a loss after tax of Rwf 5.4 billion in the comparable period.
If we focus on the business rather than the noise in the numbers, total subscribers were up 7.4% and service revenue increased by 14.7%. This is exactly what you want to see in frontier markets like Rwanda, where the average revenue per user (ARPU) should be increasing over time as customers take more products.
EBITDA increased by 17.3%, with EBITDA margin moving 100 basis points higher to 35.8%.
As the cherry on top, capex (excluding leases) decreased by 8%. This means that it was a strong period for adjusted free cash flow, up by 34.5% for the year.
Double-digit dividend growth at Resilient (JSE: RES)
The retail-focused REIT is doing well
Resilient REIT has released results for the year ended December 2025. The company focuses on owning retail centres that have at least three anchor tenants. This certainly seems to be working, with the total dividend for 2025 coming in 11.4% higher than the prior year.
The South African portfolio achieved growth in net property income of 8.1% for the year. Retail sales in the portfolio increased by 4.9%. Lease renewals achieved positive reversions of 2.2%.
It’s also worth noting that Resilient is one of the many property companies in South Africa that have executed renewable energy projects to protect against Eskom-related inflation. Resilient takes it to the next level though, with an expectation that 43.2% of energy requirements will be provided by solar by the end of 2026.
In the offshore portfolio, the dividend from Lighthouse Properties (JSE: LTE) increased by 7.5% in euros, or 10.5% in rand. Resilient also has direct stakes in properties in France and Spain, with both regions showing positive growth. The company has recently been reducing the stake in Lighthouse, so it will be interesting to see how the offshore strategy develops.
A complicated period for Sanlam (JSE: SLM)
There are plenty of normalisation adjustments in these numbers
Sanlam has released results for the year ended December. As we already know from the recent operational update, they are complex results that reflect a significant drop in HEPS of 18%.
The dividend per share is up by 9% though, suggesting that HEPS may not be telling the full story here.
There were a number of major steps taken during the past two years that limit the comparability of 2025 to the prior year. This includes the cessation of the Capitec partnership, the integration of the Namibian holdings into SanlamAllianz, as well as the partial disposal of the direct stake in Shriram Finance – all in 2024. And in 2025, Sanlam reduced its interest in SanlamAllianz from 59.59% to 51%.
As you’re about to see, the difference between reported numbers and normalised numbers is significant.
New business volumes were up by 18% as reported, or 22% on a normalised basis, taking them to a record performance for the group. The margin mix is unfavourable though, which means that value of new business fell by 11% on a normalised basis.
The net result from financial services increased by 3% as reported, or 20% on a normalised basis. This metric will be replaced by operating profit going forwards.
Operational earnings fell 7%, with lower investment returns in the second half of 2025 as a major challenge. The strenghtening of the rand impacted the value of foreign-currency denominated assets.
Return on group equity value was 13.4% as reported, or 15.7% on an adjusted basis. The hurdle rate is 14.7%, so those adjustments are the difference between falling short vs. exceeding it.
It was a choppy year for the group, with the share price up 11% over 12 months.
A solid year for Standard Bank (JSE: SBK)
2025 was a good time to be in Africa
Standard Bank has released results for the year ended December 2025. As we saw at rival Absa (JSE: ABG) just the other day, it was a solid period for banks who have exposure to the macroeconomic recovery in the rest of Africa.
The group generated 51% of earnings in the period in South Africa, 40% in the Africa Regions business unit, 6% in the Offshore unit and 3% from the stake in ICBC Standard Bank. It’s a good mix that gives Standard Bank some proper growth engines.
Net interest income increased by 4%, and non-interest revenue was up by an impressive 10%. This resulted in a blended increase in net income of 6%, with operating expenses up by a similar percentage.
These growth rates were underpinned by a meaningful uptick in lending activity. For example, business lending origination was up by 21% year-on-year. This is a show of faith in the underlying economic picture.
Thanks to impairments only growing by 5%, banking headline earnings increased by 8%.
Things get a lot better after that, with the insurance and asset management business up 26%, while attributable earnings from ICBC Standard Bank jumped by 46%.
Group headline earnings increased by 11%. The dividend was 12% higher, reflecting a 56% payout ratio.
The cost-to-income ratio has been on an excellent trajectory. Ignoring the worst of the pandemic period where it was much higher, the ratio has improved from 51.5% in FY23 to 50.2% in FY25. That’s a significant improvement over two years. It’s worth noting that software and technology is a major area of investment, so that should drive further efficiencies in years to come.
Return on equity showed strong improvement in FY25. It came in at 19.3%, well above the 18.5% reported in FY24, or 18.8% in FY23.
The 2026 outlook includes an expected mid-to-high single digits growth rate in banking revenue, as well as further improvement to return on equity. They expect the cost-to-income ratio to keep improving as well, so that will help boost margins.
End of an era at Woolworths (JSE: WHL)
Roy Bagattini is retiring; Sam Ngumeni takes the top job
Woolworths announced that CEO Roy Bagattini will be retiring at the end of September 2026. I don’t think you’ll find too many investors who feel that his remuneration over a six-year period was justified by the performance of the group, but that’s often how these things go.
Personally, I’m glad to see that his replacement is an internal appointment, especially after South African retailers went through a phase of bringing in offshore CEOs. This seems to be behind us now, with Sam Ngumeni stepping into the CEO role with effect from 1 June 2026.
This means that the final few months of Bagattini’s time at Woolworths will be for handover purposes.
Ngumeni has been with the group for nearly 30 years and currently runs the Woolworths Food division. It’s rare to see a career path of this nature these days. I think this is an exciting appointment.
What is your view on foreign vs. local CEOs?
Nibbles:
Director dealings:
Here’s an unusual one: a non-executive director of Discovery (JSE: DSY) bought preference shares worth over R5 million.
An associate of a director of Northam Platinum (JSE: NPH) bought shares worth almost R2 million.
An associate of a director of NEPI Rockcastle (JSE: NRP) bought shares and CFDs to the value of R362k,
Montauk Renewables (JSE: MKR) released results for the year ended December 2025. This is a pretty obscure name on the JSE – a situation that won’t change for as long as their results presentation primarily consists of screenshots of their complicated SEC-filed financial statements. Revenue was up 0.4%, but EBITDA fell by 21.2% and HEPS dropped sharply by 62.5%.
SAB Zenzele Kabili (JSE: SZK) has released a trading statement for the year ended December 2025. HEPS is the wrong metric entirely, so I’m glad to see that they also include net asset value per share in this trading statement. The expected range is between R36.37 and R39.19, an increase of 29% to 39%. That’s a good year! The share price is R30, having come all the way down since the ridiculous situation in 2021 when people simply would not listen to reason about buying the stock way above the net asset value.
Jubilee Metals (JSE: JBL) secured a further $1.8 million worth of high-grade run-of-mine material for the Roan concentrator. They will pay for it through the issue of shares at a 14.3% premium to the closing price as at 9 March 2026. In a similar vein, the sellers of the Large Waste Project have elected to receive the next tranche of $2.6 million in the form of Jubilee shares, also at a 14.3% premium. When a junior mining company can pay in shares rather than cash, you know things are going well.
RFG Holdings (JSE: RFG) and Premier Group (JSE: PMR) announced that their scheme of arrangement has now become unconditional. As you may recall, Premier is acquiring RFG in a share-based transaction. The listing of RFG will be terminated from 31 March.
Alexander Forbes (JSE: AFH) is executing a small related party transaction with ARC that monetises the shares held in escrow as incentive awards. This increases ARC’s stake in the company from 47.53% to 49.88%. R249 million will be changing hands, so the execs are unlocking a serious amount of cash.
Southern Palladium (JSE: SDL) released results for the six months to December 2025. They are still in the exploration phase, so the only revenue is interest income on cash. The operating loss for the period was A$5 million, a good reminder of how expensive it is to bring a mine from dream to reality.
Burstone has entered into a strategic joint venture with Hines European Real Estate Partners III, in terms of which the JV will aggregate a portfolio of light industrial assets in the core European markets of Germany and the Netherlands. The parties have committed a combined €160 million (c. R3,2 billion) of equity into this strategy with Burstone investing 20% of the Platform equity and will perform the role of investment and asset manager. Hines has committed the balance. The acquisitions will be funded by a combination of Platform equity and in-Platform debt financing.
Pan African Resources has announced the potential acquisition of Emmerson Resources, a Perth-based explorer with an emerging gold royalty business and large landholding in the Tennant Creek Mineral Field. Emmerson shareholders will receive 0.1493 new Pan African Resources shares for each Emmerson share held based on a Pan African share price of £1.58 per share. The scheme consideration implies a fully diluted equity value for Emmerson of c.£163 million (R3,7 billion). In conjunction with the scheme, Pan African Resources will seek to list on the ASX by way of a foreign exempt listing. The company’s shares will continue to trade as a dual primary issuer on the LSE and JSE following the proposed listing.
CA Sales has entered into an agreement to acquire a 71.19% stake in Sunpac, a South African distributor and turnkey route-to-market partner to a portfolio of international brand owners and retailers. The company will pay an anticipated purchase price of R197,6 million for the stake – a component of the price will be determined upon finalisation of Sunpac’s audited results for the year ending 31 March – subject to a maximum aggregate purchase price of R208,6 million. The transaction will be funded from internal cash resources. In addition, the company has the option to increase its shareholding by a further 17.7% for a consideration capped at R86 million. The acquisition adds a strategic capability for CA Sales in the fast-growing private and confined label category to enhance its ability to support retailers.
In line with its strategy to dispose of non-core assets, Deneb Investments has sold the property Deneb House, located in Observatory in Cape Town to Hype Investments for a consideration of R120 million.
Kalahari Village Mall (KVM) in which Hosken Consolidated Investments holds an effective 64.78% interest, has entered into an agreement with NAD Property Income Fund to dispose of its rights, title and interest in Kalahari Mall, in which it is a beneficiary of and the lessee in respect of a 90-year notarial deed of lease. The disposal consideration of R800 million will be used to settle debt funding and a distribution to shareholders.
A non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) has been entered into by ASP Isotopes’ subsidiary Quantum Leap Energy and a large publicly traded US energy company that operates nuclear power stations. The MOU outlines potential terms for providing financial support pursuant to definitive agreements for the supply of enriched uranium.
Reinet Investments advised its shareholders that it has now received the £2,9 billion (R69,79 billion) from Athora for the disposal of its shareholding in Pension Insurance Corporation, announced in July 2025.
Mahube Infrastructure has advised that the distribution of the Scheme Circular has been delayed. In December, Sustent Holdings – funds managed by Mergence Investment Managers and Creation Capital Services – made an offer to minorities to acquire up to 18,545,454 Mahube Infrastructure shares for R102 million. The company is in the process of engaging with the Takeover Panel regarding a further extension.
Southern Sun has referred shareholders to the announcement in February whereby it advised it proposed to acquire a 50% undivided share in certain Sandton Consortium properties operated by the Group for R735 million. Pareto has elected to exercise its pre-emptive right and as a result, the transaction between the company and Liberty has been terminated.
Unlisted Companies
Yazi, a local AI-native research platform built on WhatsApp, has closed its first institutional funding round led by 3 Capital Ventures, the South African early-stage venture firm spun out of Allan Gray. The investment will be used to accelerate product development, including the launch of automated voice interviews via WhatsApp, expand Yazi’s research participant panel across Africa, and scale internationally as demand from UK and European research agencies grows.
NjiaPay, a payments-as-a-service provider, has closed a US$2,1 million (c.R35 million) seed round led by Newion, one of Europe’s leading B2B SaaS investors. The platform actively optimises payments, increases revenue, and reduces complexity for merchants. Its merchant base includes high-growth startups and established global franchises such as Talk360, Anytime Fitness and Melon Mobile. The newly raised capital will be used to expand NjiaPay’s engineering and commercial teams.
Remgro has disposed of 51,966,739 FirstRand shares through on-market transactions at an average price per share of R93.87 for an aggregate consideration of R4,88 billion. The shares were held by Remgro following the unbundling of its strategic indirect interest in FirstRand, historically held through Remgro’s interest in RMB Holdings. Remgro retained a direct exposure of 3.92% in FirstRand which it had previously identified as non-core. Prior to the sell-down, Remgro had decreased this to 1.64%.
AttBid, a vehicle representing Atterbury Property Fund (APF), I Faan and I Dirk, which made an offer to RMH shareholders earlier this month, has acquired in on-market transactions further RMH shares. Following the transactions, AttBid and APF hold 32.77% and 7.29% respectively, resulting in an aggregate of c.40.06% of the RMH shares in issue.
EPE Capital Partners has completed the pro rata repurchase of its A ordinary shares announced in February. The company has returned an aggregate R854,08 million in cash to shareholders by way of a repurchase of 105,44 million Ethos Capital shares. The company now has 150,54 million A ordinary shares in issue – excluding treasury shares.
Jubilee Metals will issue 42,989,418 shares at a price of 4.48 pence per share in respect of the Large Waste Project purchase agreement. Following the instalment, the remaining balance of the consideration is US$5,4 million. The company has also issued 29,761,905 shares to a feed partner in respect of ROM copper secured.
Premier’s acquisition of RFG has become unconditional as of 11 March 2026. RFG’s JSE listing will accordingly terminate on 31 March 2026.
The JSE has obtained approval from the SARB for the payment to shareholders of a special dividend of 100 cents per share.
Oando has announced the delay in the publication of its 2025 audited financial results which it expects to complete before 30 May 2026. Sebata has also advised that it expects the company’s results for the year ended March 2025 to be released by 31 March 2026.
This week the following companies announced the repurchase of shares:
GreenCoat Renewables has implemented a share buyback programme totalling €100 million over 12 months with a first tranche amounting to €25 million beginning on 5 March 2026 – representing 13% of the issued share capital. This week 1,577,288 shares were repurchased for and aggregate €1,15 million.
In 2025 Investec ltd commenced its share purchase and buy-back programme of up to R2,5 billion (£100 million). Over the period 2 – 10 March 2026, Investec ltd purchased on the LSE, 1,355,318 Investec plc ordinary share at an average price of £6.17 per share and 702,303 Investec plc shares on the JSE at an average price of R135.03 per share. Over the same period Investec ltd repurchased 603,704 of its shares at an average price per share of R134.04. The Investec ltd shares will be cancelled, and the Investec plc shares will be treated as if they were treasury shares in the consolidated annual financial statements of the Investec Group.
Quilter has announced it will commence a share buyback programme to repurchase shares with a value of up to £100 million in order to reduce the share capital of the company and return capital to shareholders. This week Quilter repurchased 1,018,109 shares on the LSE with an aggregate value of £1,86 million and 518,588 shares on the JSE with an aggregate value of R21,02 million.
Anheuser-Busch InBev’s US$2 billion share buy-back programme continues. The shares acquired will be kept as treasury shares to fulfil future share delivery commitments under the group’s stock ownership plans. During the period 2 to 6 March 2026, the group repurchased 410,375 shares for €26,84 million.
In December 2025, British American Tobacco extended its share buyback programme by a further £1.3 billion for 2026. The shares will be cancelled. This week the company repurchased a further 579,420 shares at an average price of £43.65 per share for an aggregate £25,29 million.
During the period 2 to 6 March 2026, Prosus repurchased a further 2,405,007 Prosus shares for an aggregate €100,5 million and Naspers, a further 1,064,589 Naspers shares for a total consideration of R924,77 million.
Two companies issued a profit warning this week: Choppies Enterprises and Putprop.
Amethis has taken a significant minority stake in Tiba for Starch & Glucose (Tiba), an Egyptian producer of rice-based specialty food ingredients. Founded in Egypt, Tiba specialises in the production of rice-derived value-added products including starch, fat powder, coffee creamer, and protein serving a broad range of applications. Financial terms were not disclosed.
In Lesotho, MG Health announced plans to merge with Canify AG. Fincial terms remain undisclosed. The merger is expected to combine key parts of the value chain – from EU-GMP certified cultivation and extraction of medical cannabis at MG Health in Lesotho, to pharmaceutical development, processing and regulatory management, and finally distribution through Canify’s established network with pharmacies and physicians, complemented by direct access to patients through Canify Clinics. Furthermore, Canify’s existing international supplier network can be optimally aligned with MG Health’s expanded production and processing capacities.
The Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development S.A. (AKFED) announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell its 100% shareholding in NPRT Holdings Africa Limited (NPRT) to Taarifa Ltd. NPRT holds a 54.08% shareholding in Nation Media Group PLC (NMG), comprising 92,618,177 ordinary shares. Taarifa has confirmed that it does not currently contemplate a mandatory or voluntary offer for the remaining NMG shares or delisting on any securities exchange. NMG shares will continue to trade on the Nairobi Securities Exchange and its cross-listed exchanges.
In Morocco, NETIS Group announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Netcom Technologies, a technology integrator specialising in Telecom, IT, Security and Critical Infrastructure solutions. No financial terms were disclosed. NETIS is a pan-African group specialising in the design, deployment and operation of critical infrastructure in the telecommunications and energy sectors.
The Kenya Pipeline Company listed on the Oil & Gas sector of the Nairobi Stock Exchange on Tuesday 10 March. The listing followed a successful IPO that saw the Kenyan government sell a 65% stake in the pipeline company, raising KES106,3 billion (US$823,07 million), in Kenya’s first major IPO in nearly two decades. The share price closed at 9.18 shilling, up from the IPO price of 9 shillings per share.
A consortium of investors led by SPE Capital, through its Private Equity Fund III, and including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Proparco, and the Belgian Investment Company for Developing Countries (BIO), announced the closing of an investment in Orchidia Pharmaceutical Industries S.A.E.,a leading ophthalmic pharmaceutical manufacturer operating in Egypt and across the Middle East and Africa. Financial terms were not disclosed. SPE has a longstanding relationship with Orchidia, having previously invested in the company through one of its managed vehicles from 2013 to 2017.
Recently launched, AfricaWorks Investment Partners, has completed its first deal, acquiring a site in Lagos, Nigeria, for a mixed-use business park development. Located in the heart of Victoria Island, this premium corporate business park development will feature 1,500+ sqm, including Managed Office for up to 125 pax, co-working spaces for up to 200 pax, Conference Centre for up to 80 pax, Executive Board Rooms, Exclusive Café with both indoor & outdoor terrasse, a private fitness centre and business concierge & valet services. The business park is set for completion in Q3 2026 and will be managed by AfricaWorks.
Mitcha, an Egyptian e-commerce platform dedicated to supporting local designers, has been acquired by US-based Converted, a company specialising in AI-powered advertising technology for emerging markets. Founded by Hilda Louca, Mitcha has built a large customer base and a vibrant community of designers and creative talents. Integrating this community into the Converted ecosystem is expected to expand the company’s product capabilities and create greater growth opportunities for merchants and designers across Egypt and the region. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Sahel Capital has approved a loan facility of US$1 million through its Social Enterprise Fund for Agriculture in Africa (SEFAA) for Zigoti Coffee Works, a Ugandan coffee processor and exporter, specialising in both Robusta and Arabica coffee. The company sources coffee beans from over 4,000 smallholder farmers and actively supports them through a range of extension and value-added services. These include training on good agricultural practices, supplying subsidised coffee seedlings through its nurseries, and facilitating access to financial institutions.
Constrained global supply chains, increasing operational costs, changing commodity prices, policy recalibration, political risk, and the push for sustainable transformation with rising global demand for the continent’s resources are all issues currently facing investors in the mining and energy sector in Africa. These challenges have resulted in some notable M&A activity, numerous legal developments, and an energy market transformation that is helping to boost the continent’s role in the global resource economy.
Mining
The African precious metals sector continues to experience increased consolidation and valuation-driven dealmaking, with companies divesting non-core assets to optimise portfolios and focus on high-return operations.
For example, the African copper industry is seeing accelerated growth, driven by global demand for energy transition and technological advancement, with significant M&A activity in Zambia and Botswana reshaping the continent’s role in the global supply chain. Platinum group metals are also rebounding, driven by rising demand for hybrid vehicles and constrained global supply. This benefits players in this space, despite the demerger costs.
South Africa
In 2025, investment in the South African mining sector was marked by two notable M&A deals that focused on corporate restructuring and balance sheet optimisation – the demerger of Anglo American Platinum (now Valterra Platinum) from the Anglo American group, and the implementation of its secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange, and the hedging collar transaction of African Rainbow Minerals’ equity in Harmony Gold Mining Company.
Legal reforms
South Africa is currently advancing a major regulatory reset in the mining sector, with the Draft Mineral Resources Development Bill now in the process of considering public consultation, and the Critical Minerals and Metals Strategy formally adopted. If the final framework aligns with stakeholder expectations, these reforms could deliver the policy certainty needed to strengthen investor confidence across the sector. Energy
Similarly, Africa’s energy landscape continues to evolve rapidly, marked by liberalisation, regulatory reform, rising tariffs, and a surge in renewable energy investments.
M&A activity in the sector has seen a nuanced shift. While the overall deal volume in Europe, the Middle East and Africa declined, linked to lower energy prices, higher capital costs and reduced appetite for minority stakes, this has been offset by a rise in African oil and gas transactions, and potential for future activity driven by renewables and major takeovers. Renewables continue to be at the heart of South Africa’s energy transition. In addition to increased activity in the captive power space over the last few years, and the emergence of trading and aggregating platforms due to relaxed licensing requirements relating to the direct sale of power, new legislation and proposed draft regulations are paving the way for a fully transparent and open market.
With the initial foundations laid, South Africa’s electricity market has moved decisively into its next phase of reform. The draft Market Code released in 2024 set out the framework for day ahead and intraday trading, and 2025 saw significant progress toward operationalising this competitive market structure.
A major milestone was reached in November 2025 when NERSA approved the Market Operator licence for the National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA), formally empowering the entity that will administer the future trading platform and oversee the implementation of the Market Code and Market Rules. NERSA also approved the Grid Capacity Allocation Rules, introducing a transparent, non discriminatory framework for accessing scarce grid capacity, which is one of the most critical enablers for new renewable energy projects.
These developments strengthen the regulatory architecture required for a competitive wholesale electricity market, which remains on track for full operation by 2031. Regionally, momentum within the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) continues to build, with growing interest in cross border power purchase arrangements and increased participation by utilities and private traders. This reflects a broader shift toward regional integration and diversified power trading across Southern Africa.
ESG
ESG factors have evolved from a disclosure exercise into a core value driver in South Africa: acquirers are integrating energy self-generation capacity, carbon exposure, water resilience and supply-chain localisation into valuations and post-acquisition integration strategies. The Government’s Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (2023-2027) continues to drive consolidation in the renewable energy sector, as businesses capitalise on decarbonisation imperatives and grid reliability needs. Institutional investors and non-institutional players are driving event-focused campaigns on value extraction and governance.
Coal remains a cornerstone of South Africa’s energy mix, and is still in high demand globally. According to S&P Global Energy, Richards Bay Coal Terminal was on track to export 55 million tonnes of coal in 2025; however, a recent high court ruling against new coal-fired power authorisations underscores the growing environmental pressure in the space.
Future outlook
As Africa’s mining and energy sector navigates complex operational challenges and rising global demand for its resources by reforming its regulatory frameworks, transforming its energy markets and deepening its sustainability commitments, a new wave of investment opportunities in this sector is being unlocked across the continent.
Alessandra Pardini is Head of Projects, Energy and Infrastructure and Ntokozo Nzima a Partner | Bowmans
This article first appeared in DealMakers, SA’s quarterly M&A publication.
Alphamin had a strong year – but it could get much better in 2026 (JSE: APH)
The company has flagged the momentum in tin prices
Alphamin has released results for the year and quarter ended December 2025. Production for the year was up by 7% and EBITDA jumped by 25%.
Here’s the really juicy part though: they acheived that EBITDA increase at an average tin price of $34,373/t for the year. The current price is more like $50,000/t. In other words, the exit velocity from 2025 is very exciting for shareholders.
To give you another data point, the average tin price in Q4’25 was $37,995/t. At that price, EBITDA was 13% higher than in Q3’25 when the price was $33,878/t. Yes, that’s a 13% increase on a sequential basis, not a year-on-year basis!
It’s also worth remembering that this annual result was achieved despite the security issues in March / April 2025 that led to the cessation of operations for a few weeks.
The risk of this happening again is always there, so the company focuses on what is within its control. Production guidance for 2026 is 20,000 tonnes, up from 18,576 tonnes.
If prices remain high and if there are no significant disruptions, the company should generate serious cash in 2026. The share price is up 57% in the past year, so those who bought the sell-off during the period of security concerns in 2025 have done very well.
Harmony Gold’s dividend more than doubled (JSE: HAR)
The same can’t be said for earnings
Harmony Gold released results for the six months to December. The company has been taking steps to diversify its business and get involved in the copper race. In a recent poll in Ghost Bites, respondents showed strong support for that strategy, even if it leads to near-term pressure on earnings due to the costs of this diversification.
In this interim period, Harmony grew revenue by just 20%, with operational challenges leading to a drop in production of 9%. This took the shine off the increase in the average gold price over the period.
When you add in the costs of the copper initiatives, headline earnings only grew by 13%. This is way behind sector peers in 2025.
Despite the timid growth in earnings, Harmony has changed its dividend policy and ramped up the cash payments to shareholders. This is why the interim dividend has more than doubled from 227 cents to 530 cents per share.
The share price is up 29% in the past 12 months. That’s good when viewed in isolation, but it represents substantial underperformance vs. gold rivals.
HCI and Deneb sell off non-core properties (JSE: HCI | JSE: DNB)
We are seeing this capital efficiency theme play out across the group
Investors don’t like it when operating companies own non-core properties. It just muddies the waters, as property as an asset class carries less risk (in theory) and thus lower returns than operating companies. It’s also a capital-intensive asset class, so you can easily end up with a “lazy” balance sheet that investors punish in the form of a lower valuation.
The Hosken Consolidated Investments (HCI) stable has recognised this issue and is doing something about it. To add to the other transactions we’ve seen along this theme, the company has now announced the disposal of Kalahari Mall for R800 million.
The property is held by a subsidiary in which HCI has a 64.78% interest, so don’t get too excited about that big juicy number. The subsidiary also owes debt on the property of R249 milion. Before any other costs, this means that HCI looks set to receive around R350 million in proceeds from the sale.
In a further example of this strategy playing out in the broader HCI group, separately-listed subsidiary Deneb is selling Deneb House in Cape Town. It seems that a property can be non-core even when it has their name on the door!
The price for Deneb House is R120 million, with the net proceeds to be applied towards settlement of debt and general corporate purposes. They expect transfer to go through by the end of July 2026. The net asset value of the property as at March 2025 was R112.5 million. New lease agreements will be concluded as part of this deal.
Overall, investors are enjoying this commitment to reducing the property exposure in HCI and its broader group.
The V&A Waterfront is still Growthpoint’s gem (JSE: GRT)
They are investing a fortune in further developing that property
Growthpoint has released results for the six months to December 2025. Although distributable income per share was only 2.3% higher, the company has ramped up the payout ratio and increased the dividend per share by 8.5%. This takes the payout ratio from 82.5% to 87.5%.
The net asset value per share dipped by 2.2%, with the stronger rand as one of the factors here. Growthpoint holds offshore investments in countries like Australia.
South African revenue (excluding trading and development) increased by 2.2%, with lower vacancies and the completion of major refurbishment projects. Thanks to cost initiatives, net property income increased by 2.8%.
Looking at the underlying segments, it’s good to see that all three property types in South Africa performed well. Net property income grew by 6.3% in Retail, 5.6% in Logistics & Industrial, and 5.8% in Office. Before you get too excited about the Office portfolio, reversions in that space were negative 9.6%.
SA finance costs were down by 14.6% thanks to lower average borrowings and a reduced cost of debt. The loan-to-value ratio was 33.2%, an improvement from 34.5%.
The V&A Waterfront always gets a separate mention and with good reason, as the property is flourishing. Like-for-like net property income increased by 8.7%, with increased tourism as a major driver. But because of the development pipeline and the increased borrowings, Growthpoint’s 50% share of distributable income from the property was only up by 1.2%.
The largest offshore investment in the group is Growthpoint Australia, where the distribution was essentially flat in Australian dollars. But once converted to rand, it came in 9% lower year-on-year.
The strategic priority for the group remains the same: exit lower quality properties in South Africa (especially in the Office portfolio) and focus on the best areas. They are also taking a precinct-focused approach now, instead of a spray-and-pray approach based on owning properties all over the place. You can guess which one of those approaches is the official company term vs. my cheekiness.
For FY26, the company expects distributable income per share to grow by between 3% and 5%. The dividend per share is expected to be between 6% and 8% higher.
What is your view on the V&A Waterfront plans?
Will Metair’s luck ever change? (JSE: MTA)
I’m hoping that they’ve now run out of things that can go wrong
The Rombat fine is such an ugly situation for Metair. The European Commission imposed a fine of €20.2m on the company, of which Metair is jointly and severally liable for €11.6m. Worst of all, this relates to market conduct that predates Metair’s acquisition of the company.
This slipped right through the due diligence process conducted at the time by a third party, so you can imagine the kind of emails that have been flying around since the fine was imposed.
Metair has fully provided for the fine in the numbers for the year ended December 2025, which is why they indicate results including and excluding the fine. If you include the fine, the headline loss per share was 21 cents. If you exclude the fine, HEPS was 191 cents. You can therefore see just how material this fine is.
What makes it even more frustrating is that Metair has actually made some progress in its core business. At Hesto for example, revenue increased by 8% and the EBIT margin jumped from 4.6% to 7.6%. The improved vehicle manufacturing volumes at local OEMs have been a major boost.
Sadly, the balance sheet remains a very messy situation. When there’s an entire slide dealing with how the debt is structured and whether covenants have been met, you know it’s tough. At the moment, they’ve met all covenants in the SA Obligor and Hesto packages. But it’s a precarious situation.
Aside from the many risks in the business, it looks as though the AutoZone turnaround plan is running way behind schedule. They took a chance by acquiring the operations out of business rescue. With an EBIT loss of R46 million in AutoZone, they reckon that they are 6 to 9 months behind the recovery plan.
The share price is down 22% over one year. The real story is told over three years, with a precipitous decline of 81%.
OUTsurance had a solid year overall, even if Australia had a wobbly (JSE: OUT)
The South African business is doing exceptionally well
OUTsurance released results for the six months to December 2025 that reflect a 36.2% increase in the interim dividend to 120.7 cents. There’s also a special dividend of 30.3 cents based on monetisation of non-core assets. Talk about getting something out!
The iconic South African short-term insurance arm continues to grow incredibly well. OUTsurance SA achieved normalised earnings growth of 68.9%, which means it added R808 million in earnings. That’s just as well, as Youi Group in Australia took a nasty knock from natural peril claims, with a 43% drop in normalised earnings (a decrease of R519 million). Swings and roundabouts were the order of the day here.
OUTsurance Life put in a flat result (normalised earnings of R143 million), while the start-up losses in OUTsurance Ireland increased to R263 million. OUTsurance plays the long game by building businesses from scratch. It requires patience, but in my opinion this is a better strategy than doing large offshore acquisitions.
It’s important to remember that these businesses roll up into OUTsurance Holdings, which isn’t the listed company. The listed company is in fact OUTsurance Group Limited, which holds 92.8% in OUTsurance Holdings.
Aside from the impact of the non-controlling interest in OUTsurance Holdings, this means that there’s also the effect of treasury and other movements in OUTsurance Group.
Once these are all taken into account, we can see that normalised earnings per share increased by 7.3% at listed company level.
You can therefore see that an increased dividend payout ratio is at play here, as 36.2% growth in the dividend isn’t reflective of the maintainable growth rate in earnings.
Still, with return on equity of 32.3% and the core business in South Africa doing so well, these are solid numbers. The Australian performance is irritating of course, but the insurance game means that you have to retain some of the risk on your balance sheet in order to earn a return. If the spiders and snakes in Australia don’t get you, it seems like the storms just might!
Rainbow Chicken’s HEPS more than doubles (JSE: RBO)
These are the joys of operating leverage – when it works in your favour
The poultry industry is famous for operating leverage. This means that there are high fixed costs in the system, so a good period with strong revenue can be really lucrative for investors. Conversely, a poor period can be disastrous.
It’s also famous for having very low margins, which means that small changes at the top of the income statement can drive substantial percentage movements in net profit.
These sector quirks are clearly visible at Rainbow Chicken in the six months to December 2025. Revenue increased 11.3%, EBITDA jumped by 81.4% and HEPS more than doubled – up 109.9% to 74.81 cents!
EBITDA margin increased from 7.4% to 12.0%. As another indication of just how much better things were in this period, Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) jumped from 12.6% to 22.6%.
Management feels confident enough to declare an interim dividend of 15 cents per share. There was no interim dividend in the comparable period.
As a quick note on the segmentals, it was the Chicken division that did all the heavy lifting here. Operating profit was up by 183.9% in that segment! The other major division, Animal Feed, had flat earnings. There is also a very small Waste-to-Value division that achieves marginal profitability while helping the group achieve sustainability and other goals.
The threats are always just behind the door in this sector, with avian flu as an eternal concern. And just for some additional spice, the Competition Commission is busy with a full inquiry into the concentration in the industry. Rainbow Chicken points out that scale is key to efficient production, so hopefully the regulators will reach the same conclusion.
Just 1% dividend growth at Supermarket Income REIT (JSE: SRI)
Welcome to the joys of hard currency growth rates
Supermarket Income REIT operates in the UK. This means that they earn a currency that tends to avoid falling out of bed in the morning. Although the rand has been a star recently, let’s not forget what happened in the 20 years before that.
For the six months to December 2025, the company achieved dividend per share growth of just 1%. To give you a sense of how little growth is actually available in the retail property market in the UK, the dividend growth target is 2% per annum from FY27 onwards. This is truly a game of inches.
There’s no shortage of debt in these developed market structures, with the loan-to-value jumping from 31% to 45%. The economics of property deals in the UK are just completely different to the South African market.
Nibbles:
Director dealings:
Guess who’s back? Des de Beer has bought R484k worth of shares in Lighthouse Properties (JSE: LTE). When he starts buying, he usually pulls the trigger on a daily basis for a while. Let’s see what happens.
With a market cap of just R255 million, Putprop (JSE: PPR) sits among the smaller names on the JSE. In a trading statement for the six months to December 2025, the company noted an expected decrease in HEPS of between 13% and 17%. Results will be released on 18 March.
Remgro (JSE: REM) announced that they have continued to reduce their stake in FirstRand (JSE: FSR). By June 2025, they had already reduced their stake to 1.64% in the financial services giant. For context, they owned 3.92% in 2020. They’ve now sold further shares to the value of R3.9 billion. This looks like roughly half of the remaining stake.
RMB Holdings (JSE: RMH) announced that the circular related to the AtTBid offer has been delayed. The TRP has granted an extension that gives the company until 8 April 2026.
JSE Limited (JSE: JSE) announced that the SARB has approved their special dividend. They can now go ahead and pay in line with the originally announced timetable.
PSG Financial Services (JSE: KST) announced the appointment of Dr. Christopher Loewald as an independent non-executive director. Loewald was previously the Chief Economist of the SARB and served on the Monetary Policy Committee until his retirement on 1 March 2026. That’s an appointment that is worth noting!
Nigerian energy company Oando (JSE: OAO) is experiencing a delay in the release of financial statements. They attribute this to the migration and integration of legacy ERP systems. Whatever the reason, regulators don’t have much patience for this kind of thing. The company plans to file the 2025 financials by the end of May, with the goal that this won’t be more than 45 days after the reporting deadline.
Another name in the naughty corner is Sebata Holdings (JSE: SEB), suspended from trading and miles behind on financials. They still need to release the report for the year ended March 2025! They hope to get this done by the end of March 2026. The delays relate to the accounting complications of the Inzalo Transactions.
Private markets are playing a growing role in global investing. Private equity, private credit, infrastructure and private property investments are a significant part of economic activity. And with more companies remaining private for longer, investors will need to look deeper for the opportunities of tomorrow.
These markets come with challenges related to daily price discovery, liquidity and due diligence. Although ETFs cannot solve these issues, they can act as a liqudity sleeve in situations where committed institutional capital can be invested in a liquid ETF until the private market manager calls the capital.
The benefits of this approach include reduced cash drag, efficient cost management in transactions and more certainty over cash deployment for the parties to a transaction.
Duma Mxenge, Head of Business & Market Development at Satrix, joined me on this podcast to explain exactly how this works.
This discussion is aimed at institutional investors and professionals who are active in private markets.
Satrix Investments (Pty) Ltd & Satrix Managers (RF) (Pty) Ltd is an authorised financial services provider. The information does not constitute advice as contemplated in FAIS. Use or rely on this information at your own risk. Consult your Financial Adviser before making an investment decision. While every effort has been made to ensure the reasonableness and accuracy of the information contained in this document (“the information”), the FSP’s, its shareholders, subsidiaries, clients, agents, officers and employees do not make any representations or warranties regarding the accuracy or suitability of the information and shall not be held responsible and disclaims all liability for any loss, liability and damage whatsoever suffered as a result of or which may be attributable, directly or indirectly, to any use of or reliance upon the information. For more information, visit https://satrix.co.za/products
Full Transcript:
The Finance Ghost: Welcome to this episode of the Ghost Stories podcast. It’s going to be a particularly interesting look at a rather technical application of a structure that I think we all know and certainly love, and that is exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
That’s something where if you don’t have them in your portfolio, you really need to take a good, hard look at what you’re doing and make some changes, I think, because ETFs are a fantastic underpin in any equity portfolio.
You can go back and check out any of the podcasts that I’ve done with Satrix over literally the past three years. There’s a wonderful library of content there for you to go and understand why these things are so important.
And of course, you can also have them in your tax-free savings account. Something that is a really, really useful way to build wealth over time.
But today, we’re talking about something a little bit different – another application for ETFs, and I think a fascinating look at some financial engineering concepts and how things can be adapted.
So to do that today, Duma Mxenge is here. He is going to walk us through ETFs and how these can be used in the private markets. So, Duma, I’m really looking forward to this. Very interesting stuff.
Duma Mxenge: Thank you, Ghost, and thank you for having me. I know I promised last year that I’d come back with a stock pick, but geez, this market is…
The Finance Ghost: So, no stock picks, hey?
Duma Mxenge: [laughing] I thought I’d come with an interesting topic.
The Finance Ghost: No, exactly. Look, rather this, than throwing darts at stock picks right now, because the geopolitics change literally every three hours, let alone the time between recording, release and someone listening to this down the line.
We’ll stick to our knitting today, which is ETFs in private markets.
Let’s jump straight into that. And obviously, what makes this interesting is if you just look at what ETFs do and what they say they do: it’s an exchange traded fund. It’s a listed instrument.
So people immediately think: ‘index’, ‘tracking’, ‘liquidity’… I mean, these are the key characteristics, right? Let’s just start there.
If I think through the Satrix product suite, when people think ‘ETFs’, they’re thinking ‘diversified’, ‘one shot’, ‘underlying basket’ and ‘listed’. Right?
Duma Mxenge: Yeah, that’s quite correct. At the core, as you said, an ETF is designed for simplicity, transparency and liquidity. They’re listed on the exchange and everyone knows that. You can buy and sell them throughout the day, just like a stock.
So, for the last 25 years – and we celebrated our 25th birthday last year, Satrix launched the very first ETF in South Africa. From the work that we’ve done in the last 25 years, the industry has now defined an ETF by the idea of providing broad market access in a low-cost and efficient way.
You will remember, when we started, the world was caught up with active versus passive. I think now, I’m quite glad to see that we’ve moved to a more sophisticated approach where it’s actually active and passive.
And so, where the ETFs form the core (as you said) of a well-diversified portfolio, you get to own the market (not just a few stocks), and you know exactly what you own at any given time.
The Finance Ghost: Duma, that certainly does make sense, and that’s my understanding of ETFs. I think if you stop someone in the street – well, maybe not in the street, I like to think they’ll know what an ETF is, but I think we may still have more work to do in that space – but certainly, if you stop someone who knows something about markets, they’ll tell you that about ETFs.
But earlier this year in Ghost Mail, you wrote an article about private markets. And I must say, it’s not often that I receive a piece of content where I’m like, “Wow, you know, I’ve really learned something from scratch here,” but I had no idea that ETFs were finding some application in private markets.
That is really interesting because private markets are typically defined by lack of liquidity; lack of visible pricing. One of the main roles in public markets is ‘price discovery’, which just means willing buyers and sellers fighting it out every day to see which direction a share price goes (or any other price, really).
You don’t get that in private markets, but on the plus side, there’s a gigantic variety of assets available out there in the private space.
And certainly, the trend we’ve seen in recent years on stock exchanges (not just in South Africa, but around the world – I think the US has somewhat bucked the trend, but that’s really the only one), is more companies are choosing to stay private and change hands in the private space rather than actually coming to market and doing an IPO and going through that regulatory process.
So, there’s a lot of opportunity in the private space, and this is not an easy place for institutional investors to participate (for a variety of reasons). Let’s deal with that. What stops institutional investors from getting involved there? What are the challenges?
Duma Mxenge: I think you’ve articulated the challenge quite well. I think, for the benefit of the broader audience, when we talk about ‘private market’, one can think of private equity, private credit or debt, infrastructure projects (in some cases, how they get wrapped, it’s either infrastructure debt or infrastructure equity), and there’s also direct property.
And so these private market strategies, essentially what they’re offering (which is the point that you’re making) is direct access to up to 80% of the economy and job creation. This is where the real growth occurs.
And as you said, more and more innovative companies are choosing to stay private for longer, which is a shame for the public market.
However, for institutional investors, especially pension funds, there are other significant challenges that I just want to highlight for you, pertaining to private markets.
One is operational complexity. Investing in direct markets requires extensive due diligence. You can imagine – the legwork; the ongoing management. It’s not as simple as buying a share on the JSE and what we’ve just articulated with the ETF.
The second big one is liquidity (and I’m sure we’re going to come back to this). When you invest in private companies, your capital is locked up for a number of years, especially in private equity strategies. Pension funds need to manage the liquidity carefully to pay out benefits to members, so they can’t afford to have too much of their portfolio in liquid assets.
And the other most important point is the governance challenges. So, trustees and principal officers of pension funds have a fiduciary duty to members, and the lack of pricing and daily valuation of private markets makes it difficult to fulfil these governance obligations.
So, even though Regulation 28 allows pension funds to have a meaningful allocation to private markets (for example, private equity, the maximum is 15%), the reality is that it’s far, far lower than that.
And so they’re missing out on what you’ve just described – the diversification, the growth opportunities – that private markets offer, especially as the public market (the JSE) has been shrinking. We saw Curro and also Barloworld delisting from the JSE, which is quite a pity.
So, the private market is becoming more and more of an important component in terms of having exposure in your portfolio.
The Finance Ghost: No, it absolutely is. And obviously, we’ll get to the role that ETFs can play in this space and ETFs are definitely not the silver bullet here that will solve all these problems, for sure…
Duma Mxenge: No.
The Finance Ghost: …but one thing that I want to touch on that you’ve mentioned there, and which is really interesting, is this concept of due diligence and actually doing the research in these companies.
And for listeners, I just want to distinguish between doing the research in public, listed companies vs. what it means in private markets. Because, of course, if you’re going to go and buy single stocks on the JSE or any other market (which basically means a company, as opposed to a big diversified basket of stuff in an ETF), then you still need to go and do the research.
You still need to go and read the financials, you need to understand what you’re doing. But the difference in a private company is, number one, the level of trust that you have in the underlying data.
Because it’s not necessarily gone through a big audit process and big finance teams, etcetera, so there’s always a risk of information asymmetry there (where the seller of the business knows more than you do as the buyer), even worse than it is in public companies.
But even more than that, it’s because you don’t have the benefit of listing rules setting this kind of minimum standard around disclosure, governance, how the company behaves, etcetera.
So the private markets then tend to be riskier. And obviously, it’s a risk spectrum. There are a lot of private companies in South Africa and everywhere in the world that could be very large listed companies; they’re just choosing not to.
I’ll give you a great example: Lego is a private company. I don’t think anyone would hesitate to own a share in Lego if they were given an opportunity to do so at a half-decent valuation. But it’s just not a company that has ever listed.
So private doesn’t mean small, obscure and weird. It literally just means unlisted. And if you play in the bigger unlisteds, then a lot of the risk factors that come in with those smaller companies and the due diligence-type stuff, you are managing those risk factors in a way that is acceptable to institutional investors.
I just wanted to highlight that kind of differential there.
And speaking of institutional investors, I know you’re speaking to them all the time. When stuff like this happens and you kind of come up with ideas like, “How can we use ETFs in private markets?”
I always wonder if this is something that came through in conversations with institutions where you went for coffee and they said to you, “Duma, you know what we would love? We would just love it if you came up with a way to use ETFs to do this.”
Or is it the Satrix team sitting around and coming up with these cool ideas and then going to the instos and saying, “Hey, we have something interesting to show you today”?
Duma Mxenge: [laughing] I guess it’s a combination of both. It’s important to listen to clients. We’ve had conversations with institutional investors and not necessarily coming up with a solution, just listening to them in terms of what I’ve just described, in terms of the challenges. That’s one thing.
And also from their vantage point – you’ve cited Lego; there’s definitely great concern with the shrinking of the public market, and they know that they need to have access to private markets because they deliver long-term returns. But they’re held back, as I said, with the challenges that we’ve just discussed.
At the same time, as one guy once said, “It’s important to look at global players in terms of what they’re doing, and if they’re doing some interesting things, there’s nothing wrong with being a great copier.”
So, we do look at global trends, and we see that your leading global asset managers are also moving in the direction of actually providing private markets to institutional clients.
That being said, even our group CEO, Paul Hanratty, has identified this as a key strategic priority for Sanlam. In fact, he advocates that pension funds should have a meaningful allocation to private markets of up to 30%.
So, the solution is really born out of clear client need and also a strategic view of where the investment world is heading.
The Finance Ghost: I’ll give you some other examples of really interesting private companies because again, I just want to land this point of how big some of these things are.
So, Rolex. There’s another serious company that’s privately held – I mean, it’s Swiss. You’d expect it to be as private as possible! Rolex is there.
Bosch is another one – obviously all the industrial equipment and tools, and DIY, and lots of other stuff, and lots of automotive applications, etcetera.
So again, some really, really interesting assets out there that are otherwise quite difficult to get access to if there isn’t some kind of mechanism to actually achieve that.
Let’s dig into the way in which you believe that ETFs can start to actually address this. I’m particularly keen to understand where it can address these challenges and which challenges simply can’t be fixed by just using an ETF, because they obviously, as I said, can’t fix everything.
Liquidity is the one that comes to mind, first and foremost, because that is the single biggest difference between private markets and public markets, I would say, is liquidity.
The ETF itself tends to be tradable, but that doesn’t mean that the underlying assets are suddenly liquid in a private market space, as opposed to a public market space.
How does this work, in terms of liquidity and rebalancing and all the stuff that we understand when people say, “ETF”?
Duma Mxenge: That’s the million-dollar question, and that’s exactly what we are trying to address and make our clients understand in terms of the role of the ETF.
I think it’s key to understand that we are not trying to create a liquid version of an illiquid asset. And it’s important to repeat that: we are not trying to create a liquid version of an illiquid asset. I mean, that’s impossible.
Instead, what we are advocating is that we are using a liquid ETF as a liquidity sleeve to manage the overall allocation of a private market.
So, let me give you an example, in terms of how it works practically. Let’s say a pension fund commits, say, 15% of the portfolio to a private market strategy.
Let’s use numbers. The total size of a pension fund is $20 billion. They allocate 15% to private market strategies, so that comes up to $3 billion. Essentially, they ring-fence the $3 billion towards private market strategies.
And as you know, the money isn’t invested from day one. It gets called by the private managers over several years.
In the meantime, the pension fund can use the low-cost liquid ETF to keep the capital invested and align it with the long-term strategy. When the capital call comes, they can sell a portion of the ETF to fund these capital calls.
The ETF also provides liquidity needed to manage the members’ inflows and outflows (and remember, the pension fund is quite dynamic) without actually disrupting the long-term, illiquid private investments.
This is where a lot of the private market managers get annoyed. All of a sudden, they want to deploy, and there are issues around the liquidity of the overall fund.
So, that’s what we are trying to manage. And it’s about managing the transition as well as the liquidity around the private market allocation, and not trying to make the private assets themselves liquid.
You also mentioned rebalancing. So, imagine you’ve got this 85% public and 15% private market, and the public market runs. Now, all of a sudden, the mix is like 90/10.
So again, the liquidity sleeve, you can actually now allocate 5% to the private market allocation in order to get that balance right, and that investment or cash can actually go towards this liquidity sleeve of the ETF.
The Finance Ghost: Okay, Duma. Let’s understand that by just digging deeper into an example to make sure that firstly, I get it, and that everyone listening to this gets it.
What would typically happen in private equity land is you would have a fund manager (or a promoter of some description) who would go and say, “Well, I’m going to go and find a group of interesting private assets, and I’m going to put them all together.”
Let’s use me as an example: The Finance Ghost. Nowhere near as exciting as Lego or Bosch or Rolex, but I think it’s cool and maybe other people would think it’s cool.
You bunch that together with some other upcoming media assets, and you call it Alternative Disruptive Media or whatever else. You come up with a lovely presentation and go and present that to institutional investors, and you hope to get them around the table and to agree to some kind of investment.
Now, that is a complicated thing. And what this ETF is not doing is replacing that investment vehicle. This ETF is not saying, “Okay, this is the Alternative Disruptive Media ETF, the underlying is all these assets, and this is a wonderful way to get around the challenges of shareholders’ agreements and everything else.” That’s not what this is.
What this is saying, if I understand correctly, is that this ETF is almost like a placeholder that basically allows for investment in diversified assets in a ring-fenced structure where the person putting together this group of media assets knows that they have access to the capital. So, they can actually go and make the capital call and say, “Hello, it’s time to put your money in.”
And on the other side, the institution knows that yes, that’s fine, because that money is already somewhere. It’s somewhere that is compliant with all our Regs. It’s sitting in assets, it’s in an ETF, it’s liquid, and it’s ready to go. It’s like a bespoke ETF, almost.
Is that then per institution? Is it just one big ETF where all the institutions then own that placeholder?
Duma Mxenge: It’s per institution, so it’s per pension fund. Each pension fund is their own strategy. Because in terms of how they’re going to allocate or how they think about their design for private markets is different from pension fund to pension fund.
So, the ETF will be tailored for whatever the strategy or long-term return is that they have in mind. We try to mimic that.
The Finance Ghost: Okay, got it. So if anyone was listening to this and planning how they were going to go and piece together an interesting group of private assets and then raise the money through an ETF, unfortunately, that’s not what this is.
This is actually, if I understand correctly, Duma, more of a solution for the institutions…
Duma Mxenge: Correct.
The Finance Ghost: …that can actually then use this to manage it. That makes sense. And then it’s an ETF per institution. It’s the “Sanlam One-Day-We-Will-Invest-This ETF” – and it sits there, and it makes sure that the capital is there.
What are the underlying assets in it? I guess it depends on what the institution wants, right? It would be put together on a bespoke basis?
Duma Mxenge: The beautiful thing about an ETF is the transparency. An ETF portion of the portfolio provides the daily holdings in terms of disclosure. So it gives the trustees as well as the investment committee a clear and real-time view of the significant part of the allocation, which is this liquidity sleeve.
It provides a level of transparency. There’s governance comfort because they’ve seen it before. It makes it easier to manage the more PEG (Private Equity Group) side of the private market investment. So, by using a highly transparent, regulated and liquid vehicle to manage the allocation, you solve many of the governance headaches associated with private markets.
It also allows the fiduciary to focus their governance budget and attention on the private assets, knowing that the public side is taken care of (which is the ETF liquidity sleeve that I referred to).
The Finance Ghost: And of course, ETFs are known for being low-cost structures and here it’s very different. This is essentially a temporary place to park your money.
Although I guess if you’re doing it per institution on a bespoke basis, you’ll basically get the structure in place, and then it will just last into perpetuity as where they park their money before they go and invest it, right?
The personal finance analogy is like your money-market fund.
Duma Mxenge: Yeah.
The Finance Ghost: I don’t want to say it’s your emergency fund. It’s almost like your mid-duration kind of ‘money on call’, where I don’t need it right now and I probably don’t need it a month from now, but I might need it three months from now.
And that’s essentially what this thing actually is, but because of the highly regulated environment for institutions, it’s a lot more complicated in terms of where the money needs to sit.
Again, this is not just an institutional solution in terms of the lens of the institution. It also gives the company (the entrepreneurs, the promoter, whatever) raising the money comfort that the money is actually there.
That’s a big part of this, right – that the capital call is there, and they don’t need to worry about any potential hiccups down the line?
Duma Mxenge: Exactly. And also, the corollary is for a pension fund, you don’t want to have a situation where 15% of your allocation is sitting in cash because then you’re not sweating the assets.
So, what we’re saying is that by using the ETF as a liquidity sleeve, you’re trying to sweat those assets so you’re always invested in the market. But it’s liquid instruments that you can call at any time, as and when you need them.
The Finance Ghost: And obviously, it’s the investment committee’s job to then make sure they don’t do crazy things like… I don’t know, go and put it in risky equities where there could be a market crash just before their capital call?
Those are all the checks and balances that would need to happen internally with a product like this, right?
Duma Mxenge: Correct.
The Finance Ghost: That makes sense. And of course, ETFs are very famous for being low-cost structures. In this case, it’s about long-term investment returns because again, it’s about managing the cash drag, etcetera.
So I guess the low-cost nature of ETFs carries through into this product as well, which is quite important. Is that possible in this environment, just given how different this is?
Duma Mxenge: First things first, it’s important to just highlight that private market investments do come with higher fees than your traditional public investments. There’s no getting around it.
If you speak to any private market manager, the term that they use is ‘origination premium’. So, there’s a premium attached to creating and originating quality assets. However, the goal with this (having a hybrid structure of the ETF with the private asset) is that you’re able to manage your TIC (Total Investment Charge).
By using a low-cost ETF for the liquidity portion of the portfolio, you create a blended fee that is much more palatable for an institutional investor. The ETF helps to subsidise the cost of the private market allocation, making it more accessible.
And the key metric that a lot of private market managers use is this ‘net return after fee’, or the technical term is ‘excess return per unit of risk after fees’. And evidence has shown (I mean, you’ve mentioned Lego), that historically private markets have delivered superior returns that more than compensate for the higher fee that you pay.
The Finance Ghost: Yeah, I love that concept of an origination premium. So much of finance is about putting fancy terms to things that, just explained simply, are quite simple, right?
But that’s how the market works, and it’s basically just a finder’s fee…
Duma Mxenge: Correct.
The Finance Ghost: It’s not easy to find these private assets. It’s even harder to get the owners to agree to sell.
Duma Mxenge: Absolutely.
The Finance Ghost: This is how private equity works. This is how the corporate finance industry works. I did this life for years, and it’s very hard. It’s very, very hard.
And it all comes down to origination premium. Getting paid to go do the things that you actually do, and there are fees involved in that. And of course again, this is about managing, for the institutions, the ‘parking fee’ as opposed to the structure further down, what the portfolio manager might earn etc.
We’ve got to keep distinguishing between these concepts, because it’s easy to get confused about where the ETF sits in this value chain.
This is quite interesting, and I think it’s also very much through the lens of institutional investing – institutional investors listening to this will go, “Oh yes, this solves the XYZ problem that I’ve always had.” Whereas I think for retail investors listening to this, who understand ETFs, it’s like, “Hang on, what does this mean, exactly?” [laughing]
Duma Mxenge: Yeah.
The Finance Ghost: So, in terms of the timing of this thing coming to the institutions, when is this coming to the market? And also, is it targeting all institutions? Big, small – what sort of minimum size does this ETF need to be to be viable?
Because anyone listening to this going, “Oh, this might make sense for my particular investment fund,” might want to just get a sense of size and timing here, as opposed to just timing.
Duma Mxenge: Yeah, that’s a very good point. The direction of travel, when you look at innovative products, is that you first start with pension funds because they’ve got the scale, right?
And then, once you get that right and you’ve got the scale right, then you can start looking at more, not necessarily bespoke, but more off-the-shelf solutions. You start looking at family offices, you start looking at addressing your high net-worth individuals.
And there are examples of that overseas. The likes of State Street have partnered with Apollo, where you can actually buy an off-the-shelf ETF where 80% is liquid and 20% is actually private market. We’re not there yet in South Africa.
And then ultimately, you can provide products like you’ve been used to with the ETFs in South Africa, with no minimum, which then address the mass affluent.
But for this particular fund, the initial focus is institutional investors and typically, to create a bespoke portfolio, you’re looking at a minimum of R100 million worth of assets.
And also, the pension funds are the ones who are more equipped to handle the complexities of private market investing.
That being said, the long-term vision is absolutely to democratise the market. So, we are socialising the idea with institutional investors, and then we can start looking at the broader market, as it were.
The Finance Ghost: Yeah, it’s interesting. A lot of the conversation for the past few years has been to move away from the concept of ‘active versus passive’. It feels like some lines are now blurring between public and private, which is interesting.
All I want to see, Duma, is just venture capital ETFs on the JSE. That’s all I want you to do. I just want a low-cost way for people to add some serious risk to their portfolio and for money to find its way into risky places.
And you know, it sounds crazy, but the American market is built around this; the American economy is built around this: people taking serious risk.
It sounds ridiculous, but if you’re willing to go and throw R1,000 at online betting (and clearly lots of people are willing to do that), then R1,000 on an ETF that owns a basket of 20 VC-type plays? I would argue that the odds are much better in the VC investment than they will be in your online betting.
It’s slightly tongue-in-cheek, but at the end of the day… if there was one thing that I wish could change in South African finance, it would be a way to just bundle together VC assets into a low-cost strategy with an appropriate amount of regulation (i.e. as little as possible) and to just YOLO it.
Just get some capital into the hands of entrepreneurs who are actually out there trying to do some cool stuff.
And just get away from this thinking where investing is a very low-risk thing. And then people take their money, and they literally gamble it away, and we don’t, for some reason, talk about how there’s a risk spectrum where you can take that amount of risk on gambling, but it’s an investment, you know?
Duma Mxenge: (laughing)
The Finance Ghost: Anyway. That’s my wish list. When we do this again next year, I’d love you to come back and tell me about how this is happening.
Duma Mxenge: No, I hear you. The private market space is definitely exciting. It’s something that we are looking at and also finding the right structures that make sense. But we also want to stick to what we are known for, and that is simplicity and transparency.
So, if we can find a sweet spot… It’s a journey that we’ll need to work with our private market colleagues to find products that are ‘retail-friendly’, as it were. We’ll definitely put that on our to-do list in terms of product development.
The Finance Ghost: There we go. Then we can maybe get that little basket of media assets into a VC fund. Imagine how fun that would be.
Duma, on a serious note, thank you. I think this has done a really good job of just clarifying the role that ETFs can play in these private markets.
Because I think, even for me, you kind of hear that and you think, “Oh, that’s interesting, but unlisted assets are illiquid and blah, blah, blah.” It’s not trying to solve those things, at least not right now.
What this is trying to do is give institutions a way to have less cash drag, a ring-fenced amount sitting in a liquid asset that they can manage their cash calls, and so that people looking to put together private structures have a little bit more comfort that this money is actually there and it’s ready to go.
Very interesting. And obviously, anyone listening to this who wants to chat to you about this can reach out to you on LinkedIn, as always, Duma?
Duma Mxenge: Yes, most definitely. I’ll be quite keen to unpack it. It’s a new concept and there’s a lot of learning that we can also learn in the industry, but we’re super excited. I think there’s definitely a space for such a solution.
The Finance Ghost: Fantastic. Duma, thank you so much. I’m sure we’ll do another one of these soon this year. Good luck, and I look forward to seeing how this all plays out.
Duma Mxenge: Thank you, Ghost. I’ll definitely give you an update.
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Absa had a strong year in 2025 and expects even more in 2026 (JSE: ABG)
The positioning in Africa is paying off
Absa generated solid growth for investors in 2025, with HEPS up by 12.2% and the dividend per share up by a similar 12.0%. The overall value of the bank moved in the right direction, with the net asset value per share increasing by 8%. Return on Equity (ROE), the core driver of a bank’s valuation, increased from 14.8% to 15.0%.
If we dig deeper into the numbers, we find that Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) grew earnings by 14% and achieved ROE of 21.1%. I expect to see a strong ROE here, as this business unit enjoys the best opportunities for advisory work. This boosts ROE by generating the “R” without needing to use much of the “E” in its business model. Sure enough, non-interest income grew by 16%.
In Personal and Private Banking, earnings grew by 7%. Active transactional customers grew by 3%, and Absa’s efforts to cross-sell products in the customer base appear to be paying off. ROE was 17.6% in this business unit.
Business Banking is where things headed in the wrong direction. Earnings fell by 8%, although ROE was the highest in the group at 21.5%. Revenue was up by just 2% in that business unit.
Finally, the Africa regions did ridiculously well. The macroeconomic improvements on the continent filtered through into Absa’s business, with earnings up by a whopping 51%. But ROE is only 17.1%, so they need to get that much higher – especially given the underlying risks.
I must point out that the Africa business unit doesn’t include the CIB activities in Africa. Those fall under the CIB business unit, with Africa generating R5.5 billion vs. R7.5 billion in South Africa within CIB. In other words, Absa has much more exposure to Africa than you might think – especially if you only gave the segmental breakdown a cursory glance, instead of digging into the detail.
Special mention must go to the net trading line within non-interest income, up by 30% year-on-year. The star of the show was the FICC business (Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities), up by a delicious 51% vs. the prior period. There’s a reason why the people with multiple screens and Bloomberg terminals get paid the big bucks. Again, this sits inside CIB.
The group credit loss ratio of 88 basis points is nicely in the middle of the 75 – 100 basis points target range. This is encouraging for the general credit picture.
In terms of the 2026 outlook, they expect mid-single digit revenue growth, with the credit loss ratio expected to improve towards the bottom half of the target range. With operating expenses expected to grow by low- to mid-single digits, positive JAWS is the flavour of the year.
This is exactly what investors want to see, with JAWS measuring the difference between the growth rate in income and expenses. If JAWS is positive, it means that operating income margin is going the right way.
Finally, they expect ROE of around 16%, which would be a significant improvement vs. 2025.
The bank may be red, but the story is very green right now!
Which of these banks would you choose to invest in at the moment, if you could only choose one?
Attacq ticks the box of beating inflation – and by quite some margin (JSE: ATT)
More than 9% growth in the dividend is excellent
Investors in property companies are generally happy to see growth in the mid-single digits. They want to beat inflation as a minimum hurdle, with a few hundred basis points on top for good measure.
To see a local fund grow the dividend by 9.1% is impressive – and that’s exactly what Attacq has done in the six months to December 2025.
Attacq’s net operating income grew by 5.2%. That’s a good start to any income statement.
There was a slight decrease in the gearing (debt) ratio from 25.9% to 25.1%. Thanks to a decrease in overall interest rates, this means that net lower finance costs helped offset cost growth at the centre, allowing the increase in net operating income in the property portfolio to flow through to shareholders.
The retail properties enjoyed positive rental reversions of 3.6%. Logistics had negative reversions of 6.1%, but this portfolio tends to be lumpy with only a few leases churning in any given period. As for the office portfolio (or “collaboration hubs” as Attacq likes to call them), reversions were negative 5.9%.
Across the three portfolios, lease escalations ranged from 6.3% to 7.2%. This is a reminder that property companies face different inflationary pressures to the CPI basket that the SARB works off.
It’s also worth highlighting that Waterfall City contributed 30.9 cents per share of distributable income, while the Rest of South Africa was 29.5 cents. Investors often forget that Attacq has a portfolio that stretches well beyond the Waterfall area.
And in case you’re wondering, trading density growth at the key Mall of Africa property grew by 4.2%. The best performer in the portfolio on this metric was Lynnwood Bridge, up by 6% and boasting the highest trading density in the group by a substantial margin.
Burstone’s platform strategy makes further progress (JSE: BTN)
They’ve announced a new joint venture in Europe
Burstone Group has announced the launch of a joint venture in Germany and the Netherlands with Hines European Real Estate Partners III. The portfolio will be seeded with light industrial assets.
This is precisely the strategy that Burstone has been talking about for ages now. Essentially, they want to act as property investor and asset manager, generating fees along the way that boost performance. That’s the theory, at least.
The Hines fund and Burstone will contribute a combined R3.2 billion in equity to this joint venture. Burstone is on the hook for only 20% of the equity (funded through existing credit lines), yet they will act as the investment and asset manager for the entire joint venture.
Why does this make sense for Hines? Well, these enormous offshore funds have neither the time, nor the inclination, to actively manage their portfolios to the same extent that Burstone is able to. Burstone has more than enough skin in the game here to create alignment with Hines, so it seems like a decent deal for all involved.
There’s no shortage of financial leverage in this structure. The joint venture itself will be funded at a loan-to-value of 60%. As noted above, Burstone’s equity contribution is being funded by existing group facilities on the Burstone balance sheet.
This shows you that in a developed market environment with structurally lower rates, there’s more debt in property deals than you would typically see in South Africa.
CA Sales is doing much better than I expected (JSE: CAA)
With plenty of concerns around Botswana in the market, this company has bucked the trend
I’ve been holding my breath for an earnings update by CA Sales Holdings. Although the company has done a great job of diversifying its earnings in Africa, Botswana is still the market that it calls home.
And as we know from the issues facing De Beers in the mined diamond space, as well as the recent update from retailer Choppies (JSE: CHP), the macroeconomic pressures are piling up in that market.
Despite these concerns, CA Sales released a trading statement for the right reasons. They expect HEPS to grow by between 15% and 20% for the year ended December 2025. Sure, acquisitions will play a role here, but this is still an impressive performance.
I look forward to the release of full results on 26 March.
Hyprop will increase its payout ratio (JSE: HYP)
Shareholders will have to be patient for the juicier full-year dividend, though
Hyprop has amended the dividend policy for FY26, with an increase in the payout ratio from 80% to 82.5%. The shape over the year is interesting, as they pay 95% of distributable income from the South African portfolio as an interim dividend, with the final dividend then taking into account the group results.
With the group believing that they are on track to achieve the upper end of the guided growth of 10% to 12% in distributable income per share for the year ended June 2026, this is an encouraging outlook for the dividend.
The interim numbers for the six months to December are far less exciting, though. Distributable income may have increased by 12.9%, but distributable income per share was only up by 5.4% thanks to additional shares in issue. The interim dividend grew by just 4.9%.
There are encouraging underlying metrics, like trading density up by 7.5% in the South African portfolio and positive rent reversions of 7.6%. In Eastern Europe, trading density increased by 3.6%, while positive rent reversions were 2.7%.
The footfall stats are interesting. This metric increased by 1.9% in South Africa, but fell by 3.0% in Eastern Europe.
I noted that the vacancy level at Table Bay Mall is 2.3%, significantly above Canal Walk (1.4%) and especially Somerset Mall and CapeGate, both just 0.1%. Even though Table Bay Mall is almost as big as CapeGate, footfall was just 2.9 million for the period vs. 5.3 million at CapeGate. I still think they overpaid for Table Bay Mall, despite all the growth happening out there.
The vacancy levels in the properties in Gauteng are significantly higher. Clearwater is sitting at a worrying 6.9%!
The group loan-to-value ratio has improved from 33.6% to 31.0%. They have R7.9 billion in ZAR-denominated debt and R5.9 billion in EUR-denominated debt.
Trellidor’s HEPS did a magical disappearing act (JSE: TRL)
They are still profitable – but only just
Trellidor has released results for the six months to December 2025. HEPS fell by a revolting 98.1%, coming in at just 0.6 cents for the period.
The problems started right at the top of the income statement, with revenue from continuing operations down by 21.3%. If you use total operations, it fell by 47.1%. The disposal of Taylor and NMC are relevant here.
The main reason for the drop in revenue from R204.8 million to R161.1 million is that there was a lumpy contract in the UK of R38 million that didn’t repeat in this period. That accounts for most, but not all, of the drop.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that net debt was almost halved. Still, with net debt of R46.7 million vs. interim EBIT of just R3.5 million, Trellidor looks to be in a precarious position.
The houses protected by the products are much safer than the balance sheet at the moment. It’s little wonder that the share price is down 40% in the past 12 months.
A casual 40% increase in HEPS at Weaver Fintech (JSE: WVR)
I’m a very happy shareholder
The J-curve is such a pretty thing. When a technology company hits that upward slope and starts generating profits at a high incremental margin, it’s a good time to be a shareholder. It’s even better if you got in before the market actually realised just how good things were going to be.
Weaver’s share price is up 123% over 12 months. I bought my shares after the company appeared on Unlock the Stock last year (when they were still called Homechoice International). That’s all the evidence you need that my platforms are also my research processes.
Why is it doing so well? Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) adoption has really taken off in South Africa. Weaver has a variety of financial products, but BNPL seems to have been the catalyst for the upswing in growth.
With revenue growth of 23% and return on equity of 14.7%, Weaver is putting out exceptional numbers. HEPS is up 40% and the full-year dividend grew by 42%, so the cash quality of earnings is excellent.
With 4.3 million customers vs. 3.1 million a year ago, Weaver is growing at a remarkable pace. And like all great technology ecosystems, they have plenty of product opportunities in the pipeline.
Curious to learn more? Register to attend Unlock the Stock on Thursday this week at midday. As I said, this platform was core to my due diligence process on Weaver last year! You can attend for free, but you must register here.
Nibbles:
Director dealings:
The CEO of AngloGold Ashanti (JSE: ANG) received share awards worth R58.7 million and sold the entire lot.
Through participation in the Ethos Capital (JSE: EPE) pro-rata repurchase, three directors of the company sold shares worth around R36 million.
The CEO of KAL Group (JSE: KAL) bought shares in the company worth R995k.
NEPI Rockcastle (JSE: NRP) announced that an associate of Andre van der Veer bought CFDs with a value of almost R900k.
A non-executive director of Anglo American (JSE: AGL) bought shares worth around R370k.
The CEO of Astral Foods (JSE: ARL) bought shares worth R131k.
KAL Group (JSE: KAL) announced that the Eswatini Competition Commission has approved the sale of Agriplus. The deal has therefore met all conditions and will now also be implemented in the Kingdom of Eswatini.
Lighthouse Properties (JSE: LTE) has posted a circular to shareholders regarding the scrip dividend option. This gives shareholders the ability to receive shares in lieu of cash. The benefit to the company is that it retains cash on the balance sheet. The downsides are that it is dilutionary for shareholders who don’t take the scrip alternative, and it increases the number of shares in issue – thus puts pressure on growth in distribution per share.
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