Executives like to remind us that they, too, are shareholders. So, when directors buy or sell, you should probably care. When investors, institutional or individual, take meaningful stakes in a company it’s probably worth paying attention too.
In the past fortnight, large fund manager Coronation has increased its ownership in niche real estate investment trust company Fairvest to a staggering 47.4%. That’s a dominant position — but surely Coronation has no grand ambitions on little old Fairvest?
Renergen’s latest capital raise made every shareholder’s piece of the pie slightly smaller. The natural gas and helium company issued 7.73-million new shares at 533c a share, a 10% discount to its 30-day trading average. While raising capital is a necessary evil for Renergen, which is facing financial difficulties, issuing shares at a bombed-out price might look rather desperate to the market.
After Super Group sold its Australian subsidiary, the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) increased its stake to 25.77%. This suggests it sees potential value post-sale. Any further share purchases from the PIC could influence corporate strategy, governance and potential future acquisitions or disposals.
Then a curious development: M&G Investments reduced its stake in Trencor, the container management group-turned-cash shell, from 8.54% to 3.57%, only days after the announcement on the conversion of its long-held dollar offshore deposits into R1.39bn. This was also just before Trencor declared a special dividend. The timing could suggest that M&G anticipated the dividend, which may have reduced the upside potential of holding on to the stock beyond the dividend payout.
In an interesting turn of events, All Weather Capital has been buying into Trencor, increasing its stake from 6.66% in December to 13.29%. Maybe a cash-out play is an appropriate hedge in these uncertain times, unless — and this is unlikely — All Weather has plans for the cash shell.
In a series of back-to-back buys Sarah Savage, wife of Purple Group CEO Charles Savage, snapped up nearly 240,000 shares in the company between January 17 and January 24. Could this be a sign of things to come? When family and friends are buying stock, it’s worth noting. Purple’s share price increased by 60.32% over the past year but dropped 6.48% in the first month of 2025.
Citigroup’s decision to increase its stake in Absa to more than 5% hopefully signals confidence in the bank’s restructuring efforts and prospects
In bigger deals, Citigroup’s decision to increase its stake in Absa to more than 5%, now worth about R8.2bn, hopefully signals confidence in the bank’s restructuring efforts and prospects.
This comes as Absa embarks on a strategy reset under interim CEO Charles Russon, after the exit of Arrie Rautenbach. While Absa’s recent performance showed some struggles, particularly in its diluted headline earnings, the high dividend yield and attractive valuation could see a short-term rebound.
There were some intriguing moves in retailer Clicks as well. CEO Bertina Engelbrecht purchased 10,200 shares worth R3.46m. JPMorgan increased its holding to 6.54% and Standard Bank reduced its stake to 3.33%. This will add some fuel to the hot debate around whether Clicks deserves its premium high earnings multiple of 30.13.
On the A2X
The A2X stock market, which offers secondary listings to a good many JSE-listed counters, managed a record month in January with total value traded reaching R19.3bn. This still pales in comparison with the JSE, but A2X statistics show the market managed a not insubstantial 9.22% market share of continuous trade in the top 30 stocks it already hosts from the JSE’s top 40. The A2X highlighted large trades between January 27 and January 31 in Richemont (R328m, or 12.6% of market share), Bidcorp (R265m; 16%), Absa (R196m; 11.5%) and Investec (R157m; 11.35%).
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