{"id":652110,"date":"2026-06-08T08:59:28","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T06:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=652110"},"modified":"2026-06-08T09:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T07:00:12","slug":"new-dstv-owners-shareholders-kissed-r4-billion-goodbye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/business\/652110-new-dstv-owners-shareholders-kissed-r4-billion-goodbye.html","title":{"rendered":"New DStv owner’s shareholders kissed R4 billion goodbye"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Groupe Canal+ saw its market cap decline by R4.5 billion after its share price fell following the release of its 2025 financial results in March 2026, due to negative sentiment over its purchase of MultiChoice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canal+ recently listed<\/a> on the JSE as one of the Competition Commission’s conditions for approving its acquisition of MultiChoice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MultiChoice was delisted in December after nearly seven years on the JSE. Originally owned by Naspers, the MultiChoice Group was spun out into a separate listing on 27 February 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The African pay-TV giant traces its origins back to M-Net, a subscription TV channel launched in October 1986, which was inspired by Home Box Office (HBO) in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canal+ was launched in 1984 as France’s first private and commercial pay-TV channel by media executives Andr\u00e9 Rousselet and Pierre Lescure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much like M-Net, subscribers had to buy special set-top decoder boxes to access the encrypted channel, and it offered a mix of programming to lure customers away from the public networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This included recently released Hollywood and French films, live premium sports (especially European football), and an edgy brand of satirical comedy called “The Canal spirit.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1990s, Canal+ migrated its encryption to a more secure smart card system to combat the growth of signal piracy. Shortly after, they pioneered European digital satellite television with CanalSatellite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company began financing its own film productions in the late 90s as licensing fees from Hollywood became prohibitively expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2000, Canal+ launched StudioCanal to produce all its major content, which has since grown to become one of the world’s largest film production companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

StudioCanal is responsible for the Paddington trilogy and will produce the R300-million Hugh Masekela biopic, The Road Home,<\/em> on location in Cape Town, with filming slated for 29 June 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canal+ was acquired by French media giant Vivendi in 2000, under which it rapidly expanded to international territories across Europe and in Francophone Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2024, the group was split from Vivendi to become its independent entity, listed on the London Stock Exchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It reported<\/a> EBIT of R12 billion (\u20ac646 million) for the 2025 financial year in its latest results, a 28% year-over-year increase in reported profit. At the time, it had a market cap of R64.19 billion (\u20ac3.39 billion).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group’s market cap declined by R4 billion between 10 March 2026 and 4 June 2026, with a significant single-day share price drop of 32.7% immediately following the results announcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This plunge immediately followed the release of its 2025 financial results as investors were spooked by the realities of Canal+’s roughly R52.2 billion acquisition of MultiChoice Group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wait and see, say top analysts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Maxime Saada, Canal+ president<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the same results, the group said it expected adjusted EBIT before exceptional items to increase to R13.90 billion (\u20ac735 million) for 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the sharp drop in the share price in March due to market fears about MultiChoice’s drag on Canal+, the stock has recovered somewhat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before 10 March, Canal+ had a market cap of approximately \u00a32.93 billion (R64.4 billion). As of 4 June 2025, the company’s market cap is \u00a32.74 billion (R60.2 billion).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, Canal+ lost approximately R4 billion of its market capitalisation, even after its share price recovered between March and June in the lead-up to its secondary inward listing on the JSE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top South African analysts remained bearish, however, citing a highly competitive market with poor growth prospects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a Business Day TV<\/a> interview, PSG Wealth Management strategist and portfolio manager Schalk Louw said he was not interested in the stock’s local listing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I am not looking at that. It is a tough market. I think they have got a strong foothold within Africa now; I think that is a big plus,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, he said that the group faces too much competition in the space for local financial growth to be significant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You are spoiled for choice; it is Netflix, it is all these providers, and I think this is where the likes of Canal will find themselves,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“So, for now, I would like to just see where they go with this whole structure before I get in.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was echoed by David Shapiro, Chief Global Equity Strategist at investment specialist Otto1890, formerly known as Sasfin Wealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I think Canal Plus is coming to South Africa simply because they have to. It was one of the conditions of the MultiChoice offer, and I think they need a presence,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He explained that there was too much competition globally, not just in South Africa, across entertainment and live sports, making it difficult to advise buying Canal+ on the JSE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There is just too much competition around,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Canal+ share price on London Stock Exchange \u2014 2026 YTD<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

French entertainment conglomerate Canal+ saw its share price drop 32.7% in a single day in 2026 as investors came to grips with its R52-billion acquisition of MultiChoice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341213,"featured_media":652460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[21383,10458,85,105733,511,101952,53921,101960],"class_list":["post-652110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-canal","tag-david-shapiro","tag-dstv","tag-dstv-owner","tag-jse","tag-london-stock-exchange","tag-multichoice-group","tag-schalk-louw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652110"}],"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\/341213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652110"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":652461,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652110\/revisions\/652461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}