{"id":650069,"date":"2026-05-27T17:00:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T15:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=650069"},"modified":"2026-05-27T18:31:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T16:31:54","slug":"all-the-south-african-tech-companies-johann-rupert-owns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/business-telecoms\/650069-all-the-south-african-tech-companies-johann-rupert-owns.html","title":{"rendered":"All the South African tech companies Johann Rupert owns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Billionaire Johann Rupert is one of South Africa’s most renowned businessmen, known for his wide-ranging investments worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While most of Rupert’s $16.1 billion (R263.4 billion) net worth is attributable to his stake in luxury goods maker Richemont, he holds significant shares in local tech and telecoms firms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rupert’s contribution to South African telecoms began with Vodacom<\/a>, which was the country’s first mobile network operator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vodacom was co-founded in 1993 as a joint venture between state-owned Telkom, UK-based Vodafone, and Johann Rupert’s Rembrandt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rembrandt’s history dates back to 1948, when Johann Rupert’s father, Anton Rupert, established the tobacco company Voorbrand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rembrandt was listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in 1956. Since the 1970s, the company has rapidly expanded its interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company diversified from tobacco and alcohol through investments in banking, financial services, mining, printing and packaging, medical services, engineering, and food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vodacom officially launched in 1994 with the first GSM network in South Africa, and one of the first on the continent. Telkom owned 50% of the company, Vodafone held 35%, and Rembrandt had 15%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In September of 2000, Rembrandt restructured by collapsing its South African holding structure from four listed companies into two, namely Remgro and VenFin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VenFin housed its telecommunications and technology companies, like Vodacom, while\u00a0Remgro represented Rembrandt’s established tobacco, financial services, mining and industrial interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2006, VenFin sold its Vodacom stake for around R16 billion after a bidding war<\/a> between Telkom and Vodafone. Vodafone won.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deal wasn’t straightforward, with Vodafone buying the entire VenFin for R21 billion, after which Rembrandt would buy back its other investments for R5 billion through a separate legal entity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VenFin’s other holdings included E-tv owner eMedia, Dimension Data (now NTT Data), FrontRange, Idion, Tracker, and Alexander Forbes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johann Rupert explained at the time that it would have been difficult for VenFin to sell its Vodacom shares separately and return the cash to shareholders in an effective way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November 2009, Remgro and VenFin merged, adding media and technology interests to Remgro’s investments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remgro’s telecommunications investments<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Through Remgro, Rupert today owns a large portfolio of companies spanning several sectors, including telecommunications infrastructure and energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its portfolio includes Community Investment Ventures Holdings (CIVH) and its subsidiary Maziv, which is the parent company of Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) and Vumatel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vumatel is South Africa’s largest fibre network operator, with nearly three million homes passed, including those covered by Herotel, which it recently acquired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remgro’s effective interest in CIVH is 57.0%, and the intrinsic value of its holding in CIVH as of 31 December 2025 was an estimated R16.23 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through Remgro, Rupert also holds a 30% effective interest in the submarine cable system company Seacom, with the company giving its intrinsic value as R706 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seacom was the first private company to launch an undersea telecommunications cable connecting South Africa to the rest of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its participation in the telecoms market not only improved international bandwidth capacity but also reduced prices, enabling affordable, uncapped residential and business Internet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technology ventures and energy businesses<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
EXSA team visiting Sereti Green<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Remgro also owns Invenfin, a strategic venture partner which invests in high-growth businesses with international ambitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Invenfin’s technology sector investments include Blue Robot, LifeQ, Money Fellows, OfferZen, Root, and Wyzetalk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also invested in e-hailing platform Bolt in 2019. Invenfin sold one-third of its shares ahead of Bolt’s \u20ac600m Series F fundraising round, co-led by Sequoia and Fidelity in January 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the energy sector, Remgro holds stakes in energy trading company Ubiquity Energy and TotalEnergy’s South African arm, through which it has an indirect stake in Natref.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ubiquity’s portfolio includes Energy Exchange South Africa (EXSA), which is among a handful of companies that have received electricity trading licences from the sector regulator Nersa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remgro reduced its ownership in Ubiquity in March 2023, when it sold a 25% stake in the company to Rand Merchant Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the South African tech companies that businessman Johann Rupert owned as of May 2026 are listed in the table below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Company<\/th>Subsidiaries\/Brands\/Investments<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Remgro<\/strong><\/td>Maziv \/ Community Investment Ventures Holdings (CIVH) (57%)<\/td><\/tr>
<\/td>Seacom (30%)<\/td><\/tr>
<\/td>Ubiquity Energy (75%)<\/td><\/tr>
<\/td>TotalEnergies Marketing South Africa (24.9%)<\/td><\/tr>
<\/td>Invenfin (100%)<\/td><\/tr>
Maziv \/ CIVH<\/strong><\/td>Vumatel<\/td><\/tr>
<\/td>DFA<\/td><\/tr>
<\/td>Britelink MCT<\/td><\/tr>
Vumatel<\/strong><\/td>SA Digital Villages (SADV)<\/td><\/tr>
<\/td>Herotel<\/td><\/tr>
<\/td>Rise Telecoms<\/td><\/tr>
<\/td>VumaCam<\/td><\/tr>
TotalEnergies<\/strong><\/td>Natref<\/td><\/tr>
Invenfin<\/strong><\/td>Blue Robot<\/td><\/tr>
<\/td>Bolt (partial exit)<\/td><\/tr>
<\/td>LifeQ<\/td><\/tr>
<\/td>Money Fellows<\/td><\/tr>
<\/td>National Healthcare Group<\/td><\/tr>
<\/td>OfferZen<\/td><\/tr>
<\/td>Root<\/td><\/tr>
<\/td>Samarkand<\/td><\/tr>
<\/td>Wyzetalk<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While most of billionaire Johann Rupert’s $16.1 billion (R263.4 billion) net worth is attributable to his stake in luxury goods maker Richemont, he holds significant shares in local tech and telecoms firms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":650267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41906],"tags":[299,21385,81711,105522,21387,21389,95651,25299],"class_list":["post-650069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-telecoms","tag-dark-fibre-africa","tag-johann-rupert","tag-maziv","tag-mytheresa","tag-remgro","tag-richemont","tag-ubiquity-energy","tag-vumatel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650069"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650069"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":650320,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650069\/revisions\/650320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}