Billionaire Johann Rupert’s forgotten crown jewel gives investors R1.2 billion

Rainbow Chicken declared a special dividend of 75 cents on the back of stellar results, bringing its total distribution for the year to 135 cents per share.

With 898,731,497 ordinary shares in issue as of the declaration date, Rainbow Chicken will pay R1.21 billion in dividends to shareholders.

The vast majority of this payout will go to the company’s ultimate holding company and largest shareholder, billionaire Johann Rupert’s Remgro, which has a 79.5% stake.

Remgro has been a shareholder of Rainbow Chicken since the 1990s, when it acquired a controlling stake.

For years, Rainbow Chicken was Remgro’s primary asset in the poultry and agriculture space.

In 2014, Rainbow Chicken was formally renamed RCL Foods to serve as Remgro’s diversified fast-moving consumer goods vehicle. 

Remgro retained a controlling stake, with its shareholding fluctuating between 77% and 79.5% over the decade to follow.

In the 2020s, the volatility of RCL’s poultry division, then known as Rainbow Chicken, began to weigh on the company’s results.

In March 2024, RCL announced that it would separate and unbundled its poultry operations, and a few months later, Rainbow Chicken made its debut on the JSE as a standalone entity.

However, Remgro maintained a controlling stake in both RCL Foods and Rainbow Chicken after the listing, now holding a 79.5% stake in each.

Since unbundling from RCL Foods, Rainbow Chicken has implemented a substantial turnaround of the business and is now highly profitable and growing.

Rainbow Chicken released its results for the year ended 28 June 2026 on Friday, 28 August, which revealed a bumper performance for the chicken and animal feed producer.

On the back of these strong results, Rainbow Chicken declared a final dividend of 45 cents per share and a special dividend of 75 cents per share.

Combined with the interim dividend of 15 cents declared earlier this year, this brings Rainbow Chicken’s total distributions for the 2026 financial year to 135 cents per share.

Rainbow Chicken’s financial results

Rainbow Chicken reported a 7.7% increase in revenue to R17.1 billion, led by its Chicken division and primarily driven by front-end pricing.

The group’s EBITDA rose by 101.8% to R2.14 billion, while its earnings grew by 134.8% to R1.34 billion.

This equates to earnings per share of 149.55 cents, up 133.5% year-on-year.

Rainbow Chicken’s profit for the year was R1.37 billion, marking a 151.72% increase compared to 2025.

The company attributed these strong results to favourable market conditions, including higher demand for poultry products and lower commodity prices.

These factors were complemented by the group’s strong agricultural and operational performance and cost efficiencies.

This could clearly be seen in the company’s segmental breakdown, which revealed a strong Chicken division and a weaker Animal Feed segment.

Rainbow’s Chicken division delivered excellent results, with revenue up 7.6% to R15 billion and EBITDA rising 138.1% to R1.63 billion. This segment’s EBITDA margin improved from 4.9% to 10.9%.

In contrast, Rainbow’s Animal Feed division saw a 3.9% decline in revenue to R7.1 billion, due to softer raw material prices.

However, by focusing on higher margin external volumes rather than raw volume growth, the division still managed to grow its EBITDA by 19.8% to R394.3 million.

At a group level, Rainbow Chicken’s returns on invested capital more than double to 36.2%, up from 16.3% in the 2025 financial year.

This improvement reflects Rainbow’s heightened operational performance and highly disciplined capital management.

Looking forward, Rainbow said its ambition is to become South Africa’s market-leading, best-in-class, and lowest-cost chicken producer.

With its turnaround strategy completed, the next phase of Rainbow’s strategy will focus on growth to match demand, premiumisation, innovation, and further value extraction.