End of an era for South Africa’s biggest stock exchange

Over the past two years, the JSE has gone from bleeding companies in a slate of delistings to a listings boom, with even more big initial public offerings (IPOs) in the pipeline for the coming years.

In 2025 alone, the JSE has added R70 billion to its market cap through new listings, with the bourse adding well-known names like Cell C and Optasia.

JSE Head of Primary Markets Maurice Madiba recently told Daily Investor that these listings speak volumes to the strength and resilience of South Africa’s capital markets.

This resilience has been necessary over the past few decades, as the biggest stock exchange in Africa has taken severe pain from a string of delistings and the country’s weak economy.

In the 1990s, the JSE had approximately 850 listed companies. This number dropped to around 400 by 2012 and dipped below 300 by 2024.

This was attributed to both South Africa’s faltering economy and negative business sentiment, as well as the JSE’s onerous and expensive listing requirements.

It was not only the number of listed companies that dwindled over this period, as the volume and value traded on the JSE had also been falling consistently.

A decade ago, the JSE had between R25 billion and R35 billion traded daily on the exchange. The daily value traded dropped between R10 billion and R14 billion at periods in 2023.

This declining trend left many investors concerned about the future of equity trading in South Africa, with fewer stocks available to trade and fewer transactions taking place.

Many blamed the JSE for this decline, citing the bourse’s stringent listing requirements and the high costs associated with remaining a listed company.

“The reality is that while the JSE’s world-class regulatory environment ensures investor safety, overregulation can make the market unattractive to businesses due to rigid and significant reporting requirements,” PSG Wealth’s Adriaan Pask previously explained.

“The JSE has been struggling, and it’s not the most obvious place for businesses to seek funding.”

However, over the past two years, the JSE has worked hard to turn this trend around, with its efforts now bearing fruit.

The JSE’s plan

In 2023, the JSE started to intensely focus its efforts on making it easier for companies to list on the exchange and encouraging them to stay listed.

The bourse was also focused on increasing the liquidity of small-cap stocks and ramping up its unlisted fundraising.

Central to this plan was reducing the bourse’s listing requirements to make it easier for companies to comply with them and make it less onerous to be on the exchange. 

However, this was easier said than done, as the JSE also had to prevent the deregulation from decreasing investor protection, resulting in this process taking longer than expected.

Some of the measures implemented included adding the ability for companies to have dual-class voting shares, red tape being cut, and allowing sector-specific REITs to be listed.

Madiba explained that one of the biggest changes has been market segmentation, whereby the JSE segmented its Main Board into the prime and general segments.

“What we’re seeing from that is the fact that companies are having easier regulatory obligations that they have to comply with than previously,” he said.

He explained that, before this segmentation, all listed companies – irrespective of size – had to do the same reporting, issue the same circulars, be subject to the compliance requirements.

While larger companies have the resources to do all of this, smaller companies struggled under the onerous requirements, which led to many delisting.

The JSE’s efforts started paying off in late 2023, and continued into 2024, with the JSE seeing a rise in new listings and fewer delistings.

One of the bourse’s most exciting moments over the past few years was the listing of discount retailer Boxer in November 2024, which marked the biggest listing and one of the most successful IPOs on the JSE in years.

Last year also saw the listings of WeBuyCars and Rainbow Chicken, while the JSE welcomed Optasia and Cell C in 2025.

JSE on the rise

The bourse’s wins over the past two years was partly due to its deregulation efforts, but can also be attributed to a more positive economic trajectory in South Africa.

The formation of the Government of National Unity in mid-2024 and the outperformance of local equities in 2025 gave the JSE a significant boost.

The JSE All Share Index posting a 42% return in US dollars for the year-to-date has generated significant interest in the bourse, both from investors and companies looking to list.

Madiba said this positive momentum is set to continue, with the JSE’s pipeline of new listings looking very healthy. Coca-Cola HBC, Fidelity Services, and Canal+ have all announced plans to list in the coming years.

“We get, almost on the regular, inquiries about how to list companies on the exchange, and not only that, also even raising debt, issuing products like exchange traded funds,” he said.

“So there’s just a lot of activity and a lot of interest, and you know the one thing is about you gotta convert that interest into actual listings.”

He said the JSE has been able to do this, while also stemming the tide of delistings seen over the past few years couple of years.

“We’ve also seen a decline in delistings, so it just shows you that the JSE has responded to the market sentiment and has responded to the market’s concerns in an adequate manner,” he said.

Madiba said this is why a lot of not only local businesses but also international companies are showing interest in listing on the JSE.

He explained that one of the exchange’s challenges in the past came in the IPO stage, where many investors would discount a company before it was even listed.

Because of this, many companies chose not to list on the exchange, leading to a “dry spell” during which the JSE saw very few IPOs.

However, Madiba said this has started to change, with investors more willing to buy IPO shares, even at the higher end of the price range, and are less demanding about getting a discount.

“I think that’s gonna just spur a lot more activity on the exchange in the coming years,” he said.