Not all share dealings are created equal. A director buying R40,000 worth of stock can be a useful vote of confidence; Christo Wiese putting almost R1bn into Brait is rather harder to miss.
Through Titan Premier Investments and related entities, Wiese subscribed for about 650-million shares in Brait’s latest rights offer at 151c a share. This is no mere opportunistic R981m punt in the market.
Titan, already Brait’s primary shareholder, had committed to follow its rights and underwrite the R2.5bn raise. Still, the size matters. Brait is in the final stages of a long-running plan to unlock value from its remaining assets. The recapitalisation will help redeem £138m of convertible bonds and fund Brait’s £108m contribution to a Virgin Active capital raise, positioning its largest remaining investment for a possible listing or sale. The rights price was set at a 25% discount to the theoretical ex-rights price — and about 43% below post-rights NAV. The subscription therefore signals continued willingness by Brait’s biggest backer to bankroll that final stretch.
Mianzo Asset Management has lifted its stake in Spar to 10.3%, only four months after it crossed 5%. That accumulation comes while Spar is still in repair mode. Interim headline earnings slumped 53.9%, net debt rose to R7.3bn, and management laid bare costly mistakes around Black Friday promotions, debtor provisions and the troubled KwaZulu-Natal distribution centre.
The upside is that much of the bad news is already visible. Spar has been unwinding its European sprawl, while new CEO Reeza Isaacs is refocusing on Southern Africa and Ireland. Mianzo building its stake while the turnaround is still young is more intriguing than buying once the numbers look pretty.
Then there is the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), whose latest disclosures put it at just over 20% in both Netcare and Woolworths. In Woolworths, that isn’t a new milestone — the PIC has previously disclosed stakes above 20% — while at Netcare, its percentage holding is also being influenced by a shrinking share count.
Netcare has repurchased 193.2-million shares since September 2023, even as adjusted headline earnings rose 21.9% in its first half. The PIC did acquire shares, but buybacks make percentage movements harder to read at face value.
Woolworths is a more mixed story. Food continues to perform well, and Country Road Group returned to full-year profitability. But second-half trading momentum weakened, and margins in the fashion, beauty and home business came under pressure.
Finally, Canal+ saw a £13,289 purchase of shares by BuMa, a company closely associated with supervisory board member Elias Masilela. The former MultiChoice chair joined Canal+’s supervisory board on June 1, following the French group’s takeover of MultiChoice and just two days before it began trading on the JSE. Early integration signs seem encouraging. Canal+ says South Africa recently delivered its strongest month for new MultiChoice subscriber acquisitions in a decade.
A2X
On A2X, Richemont led trading by value, with R280.5m changing hands and capturing 25.78% of market value traded. Glencore followed with R147.3m (17.64%). Woolworths traded R58.3m (12.99%), while Pan African Resources recorded a 12.25% share of R65.5m. Nedbank recorded R123.2m (10.69%), an interesting presence among the most actively traded names on A2X — highlighting that liquidity on the exchange is not limited to resources and luxury counters.
