Tongaat leaves the Johannesburg bourse after 74 years
The sugar producer will be delisted on 3 November. With it, 2026 will have seen 13 companies leave the exchange and only two arrive.
Johannesburg — Tongaat Hulett, once one of South Africa's 40 biggest listed companies, will be removed from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on 3 November, ending a listing that lasted 74 years, Daily Maverick reports.
The exchange said on Monday that removing the sugar producer was appropriate and in the public interest. It cited the long suspension of the shares, the lack of any realistic prospect that the company would meet listing rules again, and the company's own admission that shareholders should expect to get nothing.
How it came to this
- In 2019, a forensic investigation by PwC found that financial records had been manipulated to inflate profits and the value of assets.
- Trading in the shares was suspended on 20 July 2022.
- The company went into voluntary business rescue on 27 October 2022.
A thin year for the exchange
Tongaat's exit fits a pattern. A research note from the consultancy AmaranthCX says South Africa's public equity markets are probably heading for their worst year for new listings since at least 1995.
So far in 2026 there have been two new listings, and both were secondary listings of foreign companies. Counting Tongaat, there will have been 13 delistings.
Since 2017, the consultancy's database records 195 delistings against 71 new listings.
Not all the departures are failures. Omnia Holdings, a profitable group working in agriculture, chemicals and mining, is leaving because India's Solar Industries has agreed to buy it for R21.8 billion.
This report is based on reporting by Daily Maverick.
