Say hello to the new Blu Label

Blu Label appears to have turned over a new leaf since spinning off and separately listing Cell C in 2025.

The telecoms company’s latest results show a material simplification of its balance sheet, and it has declared a dividend for the first time in eight years.

While the group’s bottom line still suffered from accounting adjustments related to the Cell C transactions, its normalised results reflected stronger underlying performance.

Blu Label released its results for the year through May 2026 on Wednesday, 26 August. It completed the restructuring and public listing of Cell C in November 2025.

Cell C’s spin-off was the defining milestone in Blu Label’s 2026 financial year, as it derisked the group’s exposure and introduced a transparent market valuation.

It also set Cell C on an independent footing with its own capital structure, ending nearly a decade of the two companies’ highly complex and interwoven arrangement.

Blu Label has retained a 49.53% stake in Cell C through its subsidiary, The Prepaid Company (TPC). 

However, since this is not a majority stake, Cell C was transitioned from being a consolidated subsidiary back to an equity-accounted associate.

Due to the once-off accounting adjustments required to make this and other changes related to Cell C, Blu Label’s 2026 results show a net loss of R4.88 billion.

This translates into a basic loss of 539.73 cents per share, a 295.19% plunge from 2025.

However, the group’s normalised results, which exclude these transaction-related accounting complexities, paint a drastically different picture.

On a normalised basis, Blu Label delivered a net profit of R677 million, with core headline earnings of 75.33 cents per share.

The group’s top line also performed well. On a normalised basis, it reported revenue of R9.4 billion.

However, the group only recognises the net commission/gross profit on PINless top-ups, prepaid electricity, ticketing, and universal vouchers.

This means Blu Label’s imputed gross revenue across these platforms actually grew by 7% to reach R99.9 billion.

Another major change post-Cell C is a material simplification of Blu Label’s balance sheet. Previously, the group had a highly complex balance sheet.

However, Cell C’s deconsolidation has streamlined the group’s balance sheet and removed many of these legacy complexities.

Blu Label’s latest results revealed that the group’s loans to associates decreased by R3.2 billion.

On the back of these stronger, simpler results, Blu Label also resumed paying dividends for the first time in eight years.

The group declared and paid an interim dividend of 43.56 cents per share earlier this year, and has now declared a final dividend of 10 cents per share.

Blu Label also adopted a new dividend policy, with the firm now targeting an annual distribution of between 30% and 50% of its core headline earnings.