Following the joint announcement by Canal+ and MultiChoice which set out the terms of the mandatory offer, Canal+ has notified shareholders that it has, this week, acquired a further 3,374,668 MultiChoice shares in open/off market transactions. Canal+ now holds an aggregate of c.41.60% of the MultiChoice shares in issue. The shares were acquired at an average price per share of R116.57, below the mandatory offer price of R125.00 per share, for an aggregate R394,48 million.

RMB Holdings had declared a gross special dividend of 3,5 cents per share from proceeds of the Divercity Property share disposal. The special dividend will return R48,75 million to shareholders.

Coronation Fund Managers has repurchased 65,699 shares at R33.62 in terms of its Odd-lot offer to shareholders and 141,105 shares in terms of the specific offer. The repurchased shares will be cancelled and delisted. The total issued ordinary share capital of Coronation will be reduced to 249,592,298.

Marula Mining, which has investments in South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia, took a secondary listing on A2X on April 25, 2024. The company has a primary listing on the Apex segment of the Aquis Stock Exchange Growth Market based in London. It is seeking to move its primary listing to the Main Market of the LSE and will also take a secondary listing on the Kenya Securities Exchange in late April/early May.

Ellies has applied to the JSE for the voluntary suspension of its shares. The company commenced with voluntary business rescue proceeding earlier this year, subsequently entering liquidation following the announcement by the business rescue practitioner that there was no reasonable prospect of the company being rescued. The suspension of trading is effective immediately.

A number of companies announced the repurchase of shares:

British American Tobacco has commenced its programme to buyback ordinary shares using the £1,57 billion net proceeds from its sale of ITC shares. The company will buy back £1,60 billion of its ordinary shares – £700 million in 2024 and the remaining £900 million in 2025. This week the company repurchased a further 840,000 shares at an average price of £23.33 per share for an aggregate £1,96 million.

Prosus and Naspers continued with their open-ended share repurchase programmes. During the period 15 to 19 April 2024, a further 4,451,758 Prosus shares were repurchased for an aggregate €128,06 million and a further 331,645 Naspers shares for a total consideration of R1,07 billion.

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