Rupert’s Remgro sells R4.88bn of FirstRand in latest exit

Johann Rupert is not done selling. And with FirstRand sitting at a R509 billion market cap, every move he makes in the stock gets attention.

Remgro, the JSE-listed investment vehicle chaired by Rupert, has disposed of a further 51,966,739 FirstRand shares between 2 February and 10 March 2026, at an average price of R93.87 per share, generating total proceeds of R4.88 billion. The company told shareholders on Wednesday that the proceeds will be directed into its strategic cash reserves, managed in line with its capital allocation framework.

The transaction is not a sudden change of heart. It is the continuation of a disposal process that has been running for nearly six years, tracing back to June 2020 when Remgro unbundled its then 28.2 percent stake in RMB Holdings by way of an interim dividend in specie worth R23.9 billion. Following that unbundling, Remgro retained a direct 3.92 percent exposure in FirstRand, which it flagged at the time as non-core. By the end of June 2025, that residual stake had been trimmed to 1.64 percent. The latest block sale reduces it further still.

FirstRand, South Africa’s most valuable listed banking group, houses FNB, RMB, WesBank and Ashburton Investments. Remgro’s original exposure to the group dates to 2001, when it exchanged an 8.2 percent stake in Billiton and an 11.3 percent stake in Gold Fields for a 9.3 percent interest in FirstRand and a 23.1 percent interest in RMB.

The rationale for the exit is strategic rather than opportunistic. Remgro CEO Jannie Durand laid it out plainly in the company’s 2025 Annual Report. In 2020, approximately 77 percent of Remgro’s portfolio consisted of JSE-listed assets, the kind of holdings any investor could replicate through the open market. That sat uncomfortably with the investment giant’s ambition to build a portfolio of substantially unique and desirable exposures, positions only accessible through Remgro itself.

The pivot has involved more than just selling down listed stakes. Remgro listed OUTsurance following the collapse of RMI Holdings in 2022, delisted Mediclinic International in partnership with Mediterranean Shipping Company in June 2023, and merged its interest in Distell with Heineken, taking the local beverages producer off the JSE in the process. Together, these moves have shifted the portfolio toward private holdings with differentiated characteristics.

“We have successfully executed on our strategy to optimise and reposition our portfolio and, through embedding these transformative actions, laid the foundation for unlocking sustainable shareholder value,” Durand said in the annual report.

For Rupert, who has chaired Remgro since its formation in the early 2000s from the restructuring of the family-founded Rembrandt group, the FirstRand exit represents the tidying of a legacy position rather than a loss of conviction in South African banking. The proceeds add firepower to a cash war chest increasingly pointed at private, hard-to-replicate assets.