Cell C entered South Africa’s mobile market seven years after Vodacom and MTN and never matched their scale. It has stopped trying. Rather than duplicate costly infrastructure, Cell C uses MTN and Vodacom’s networks while retaining assets such as spectrum, its core network and billing.
CEO Jorge Mendes spent just more than R21m on Cell C shares in September, including R19.6m at R26.50 a share — exactly the price at which Cell C listed last November. Mendes knows the competition well: before joining Cell C, he ran Vodacom South Africa’s consumer business. Cell C’s financial 2026 revenue rose 13.5% to R12.6bn while adjusted ebitda increased 16.9%, net debt fell from R5.7bn to R2bn, and subscribers grew 17% to 8.9-million.
Pan African Resources finance director Marileen Kok spent R1.34m on 50,000 shares on September 16, the day the gold miner reported a record year. Production rose 38.6%, revenue more than doubled, and Pan African swung from net debt to net cash. Gold prices did much of the heavy lifting.
RCL Foods CEO Paul Cruickshank spent about R494,000 on shares across three trades at about 670c–700c a share, just as the stock was plumbing its 52-week lows.
Cruickshank knows the business intimately. He joined Rainbow Chicken in 2004 and, since becoming RCL CEO in 2021, has overseen a substantial slimming-down of the group, including the sale of Vector Logistics and unbundling of Rainbow. What remains is meant to be a more focused branded food business — home to Nola, Yum Yum and Ouma — alongside baking and sugar.
Financial 2026 saw headline earnings fall 32.8%, principally as cheap sugar imports hammered the sugar division and a salmonella recall disrupted pet food.
Institutions were busy. Allan Gray lifted its Dis-Chem stake to 15.19%. Allan Gray has argued that the pharmacy group offers a long growth runway and scope for better margins. Dis-Chem’s financial 2026 revenue rose 9.3%, but headline earnings fell 17.3% as the group absorbed R330m of investment in its health-care and data platform.
Exxaro attracted two large buyers: M&G Investments clients crossed 5%, and the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) reached 15.16%. First-half headline earnings fell 20%, but revenue rose 7% and cash from operations rose 15%.
Ninety One increased its Growthpoint Properties holding from 9.94% to 10.27%. These are hardly speculative property punts. Growthpoint is already the largest holding in Ninety One’s Property Equity Fund.
The PIC crossed 15% in Grindrod shortly after the logistics group reported a 52% jump in first-half ebitda, helped by record volumes through the port of Maputo. With South Africa’s freight bottlenecks still making alternative corridors valuable, the attraction is easy to understand.
A2X
Richemont led A2X’s latest top five by value market share at 16.43%, with R96.2m traded. Glencore followed at 13.22% (R149m), Prosus at 10.48% (R353.5m), AngloGold Ashanti at 9.91% (R475.6m), and Bidcorp at 8.41% (R56.2m).
Notably, all five are globally exposed businesses, so the A2X’s strongest market share gains are showing up in shares driven more by global demand and offshore earnings than the domestic economy.
