The South African tech company that doubled investors’ money in a year

iOCO, formerly known as EOH, has seen strong share price growth after the new board and management team took over in 2024.

EOH was founded by Asher Bohbot in 1998 and became one of South Africa’s best-known and respected IT companies.

It specialised in providing technology services to businesses and government and remained entrepreneurial and acquisitive throughout Bohbot’s tenure as CEO.

With a compounded year-on-year growth rate of 45.2%, EOH became the fifth best-performing company on the JSE by 2012.

The EOH share price peaked at over R172 in July 2015, with a market cap of R23.7 billion. However, the company soon faced significant headwinds thereafter.

Bribery and corruption allegations emerged in 2017, and Bohbot, who had served as chief executive since 1998, stepped down in June of that year.

The EOH share price plummeted from R171 in December 2016 to under R50 a share a year later as the market lost trust in the company.

EOH employed former MTN executive Stephen van Coller as CEO in September 2018 to improve corporate governance and address its debt problems.

However, the share price decline continued as more problems arose for the company and valuable assets were sold to pay off its R4.1 billion of debt.

As the businesses were sold, EOH lost over R6 billion in revenue generation and R8.4 billion in net asset value.

Although a significant portion of the company’s equity and income was lost, it received only around R1.99 billion in cash from selling all its businesses.

Despite selling many of its top businesses and incurring a R6 billion revenue hit, EOH continued to struggle with high debt, compounded by recurring annual losses.

EOH turned to investors to finance its debt by implementing a R500 million rights offer. This helped the company to address its debt problems.

Investors were battered and bruised by the problems at EOH, and by March 2024, the company was trading at R1.08 per share.

Stephen van Coller resigned as chief executive and stepped down from the EOH board on 31 March 2024.

New management team and board take over

After Van Coller left EOH, Marius de la Rey was appointed interim CEO. The company rebranded as iOCO and unveiled a new growth strategy.

Until January 2024, EOH’s profitability, equity and revenue were on a downward trend, with net loss margins increasing with each results date. This changed under De la Rey.

iOCO’s profitability began to improve, although its revenue continued to decrease. It showed that its expenses and efficiency had improved.

In February 2025, iOCO announced that Dennis Venter and Rhys Summerton were appointed joint CEOs, replacing De la Rey, who had left the company.

Joint CEOs are often viewed as a bad signal as it removes ultimate accountability and blurs the lines on who is in charge.

However, in this case, it worked. The new joint CEOs’ incentive structure aligned with those of outside investors.

iOCO stated that the CEOs will not receive a fixed salary and that their compensation will be entirely based on share price performance.

Rhys Summerton and Dennis Venter are directly and indirectly associated with 25% of the company’s shares, which they purchased with their own money.

The new incentive structure represented a positive shift away from the previous CEO remuneration structure, which had a high basic salary.

The high basic salary meant that the chief executive’s incentives were not directly aligned with the company’s performance and long-term prospects.

iOCO’s share price has increased by more than 100% over the last year, meaning shareholders have doubled their money.

This demonstrates that the new management team and board have successfully positioned the IT company on a growth trajectory, which the market can support.

iOCO share price

iOCO finances