At a Glance
- South Africa leads Africa’s largest IPOs, with Johannesburg hosting most billion-dollar listings.
- Boxer Retail and WeBuyCars 2024 listings highlight investor confidence in retail and tech sectors.
- Upcoming Optasia and Coca-Cola Beverages Africa listings could reshape Africa’s IPO landscape.
Africa’s capital markets have grown rapidly, with companies from Johannesburg to Cairo increasingly turning to stock listings to fund expansion and attract investors. While still modest compared to global peers, a few major IPOs have defined the continent’s corporate evolution.
South Africa continues to lead. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) remains the hub for large listings, hosting most of Africa’s biggest deals. In 2024, Boxer Retail Limited, spun off from Pick n Pay, raised $471 million, South Africa’s largest IPO since 2017. That same year, WeBuyCars debuted with $466 million, signaling investor confidence in the country’s growing digital and consumer sectors.
Earlier, Steinhoff Africa Retail’s 2017 listing raised $1.25 billion, setting a benchmark for retail IPOs in Africa. However, its success was later overshadowed by the $20 billion accounting scandal linked to former CEO Markus Jooste—one of South Africa’s biggest corporate collapses, which also drew scrutiny toward KPMG’s role and the wider web of state capture investigations.
Beyond South Africa, new markets are emerging. Ethiopia’s planned Ethio Telecom listing in 2024 marked a turning point for East Africa’s young exchange, while Nigeria and Egypt prepare similar privatizations.
Most of Africa’s largest IPOs come from retail, healthcare, and financial services — sectors with predictable earnings and strong brand appeal. But that mix is widening. Upcoming deals such as fintech firm Optasia’s planned $375 million raise and a potential $8 billion listing of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa could redefine the record books.
Each new listing profiled by Shore Africa signals deeper confidence in Africa’s markets — and a future where billion-dollar offerings become the norm rather than the exception.
1. Boxer Retail Limited
$471 million (R8.5 billion)
A discount supermarket chain spun out of Pick n Pay and listed on the JSE in 2024. The IPO was positioned as a way to reduce group leverage and sharpen management focus, while giving investors exposure to South Africa’s defensive, high-volume retail segment.
2. WeBuyCars
$466 million (R8 billion)
An online used-car marketplace that listed on the JSE in 2024. Its float signaled investor appetite for tech-enabled marketplaces in South Africa and underscored how digitisation can scale traditional sectors like automotive retail.
3. Steinhoff Africa Retail (STAR)
$1.25 billion (R15.3 billion)
One of the largest South African retail floats of recent memory (2017). The IPO showcased the potential scale of African retail chains — though the company’s later accounting and governance scandals complicated its legacy, the listing itself was a landmark at the time.
4. Life Healthcare Group
$681 million
A private healthcare provider that listed in 2016, drawing strong interest because hospitals and healthcare services tend to produce predictable cash flows and resilient demand. The IPO helped set performance expectations for private healthcare operators across the region.
5. Dis-Chem Pharmacies
$310 million (R4.4 billion)
A rapidly expanding pharmacy and retail health chain that debuted on the JSE in 2016. Dis-Chem’s listing highlighted growth opportunities in retail healthcare and the attractiveness of consumer-facing health businesses to local investors.
6. Alexander Forbes
$408 million (R7 billion referenced)
A financial services and pensions administrator that returned to the JSE in the mid-2010s. Its listing was notable for bringing a large, trust-based financial services business back into public hands, emphasizing governance and scale in the sector.
7. Optasia (AI-fintech)
$375 million (planned, 2025)
A South African AI-driven fintech that has signalled plans to list and raise several hundred million dollars. It represents the next wave of tech-enabled financial firms seeking public capital to scale products and expand in Africa’s growing digital finance market.
