{"id":653848,"date":"2026-06-15T13:03:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T11:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=653848"},"modified":"2026-06-15T13:07:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T11:07:00","slug":"investors-cant-buy-one-of-south-africas-hottest-tech-stocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/investing\/653848-investors-cant-buy-one-of-south-africas-hottest-tech-stocks.html","title":{"rendered":"Investors can’t buy one of South Africa’s hottest tech stocks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Merchant West equity analyst Neal Hoogwerf has highlighted one factor that has prevented investors from piling into Weaver Fintech’s stock: a tight shareholding structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The share price of Weaver Fintech, formerly known as HomeChoice International, has increased by roughly 70% over the last year and 120% in the last five years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally a mail-order homeware business, HomeChoice rebranded to Weaver Fintech in August 2025 to reflect its transition as a fintech-first business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company has benefited immensely from its acquisition of an 85% stake in PayJustNow in early 2022. The buy-now-pay-later platform has seen exceptional growth in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It allows shoppers to pay for purchases in three equal interest-free instalments or 12 payments with interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2025, Weaver Fintech’s revenue reached R5 billion, a 23% increase over 2024. In addition, its trading profit surged 41% to R1 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its cash and undrawn facilities also increased by more than three times, from R1.5 billion to R5 billion. Shareholders were rewarded with a final dividend of R1.32 per share for the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fintech division reached 3 million users and recorded an average of over 120,000 user registrations per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key to its recent growth was the onboarding of major retailers, including Takealot and Shoprite. Other supported stores include Makro, Superbalist, Edgars, and Sportsman’s Warehouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PayJustNow also supports seamless integration with several e-commerce platforms and accounting software systems, including Shopify, WooCommerce, and Xero. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite Weaver Fintech’s recent impressive financial performance and its share price being much higher than five years ago, the stock was down about 20% in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a recent interview on BusinessDayTV<\/a>, Hoogwerf highlighted that Fintech Weaver’s fintech segment had grown its revenue at a compounded growth rate of about 34% since 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While this was “quite significant,” the market was taking a “wait and see” approach to see if the company could maintain its impressive revenue increase. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They want to see a couple more reporting periods come through to see if the growth in the fintech segment is sustainable,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

90% of shares held by six people or entities<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Neal Hoogwerf, Merchant West equity analyst. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Hoogwerf said investors were uncertain about where to place the stock price at the moment. “Do you value it along the lines of credit retailers or do you apply a higher multiple?” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hoogwerf added another issue that raised questions: the company’s tightly held shareholding. “The top six shareholders currently hold just more than 90% of the shares outstanding,” Hoogwerf stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“So, for big institutions, it is quite difficult to get your hands on stock. You probably have to approach the shareholders directly in order to obtain a meaningful allocation.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A tight shareholding can make it easier for a share price to show sudden swings based on the trades of just one major shareholder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, cautious investors could be concerned that insiders would prioritise short-term personal gains over broader shareholder value or the long-term good of the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this reason, some investors regard these shares as illiquid and argue that their price does not reflect the true value of the shares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, some experts, such as BizNews’s Alec Hogg, have argued that tightly held companies can also achieve excellent growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said this was best articulated by the renowned businessman Warren Buffett in a letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders in 1988.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Our goal is to attract long-term owners who, at the time of purchase, have no timetable or price target for sale but plan to stay with us indefinitely,” Buffett wrote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We don’t understand the CEO who wants lots of stock activity, for that can be achieved only if many of his owners are constantly exiting. At what other organisation do leaders cheer when members leave?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Weaver Fintech share price between June 2021 and June 2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Merchant West equity analyst Neal Hoogwerf has highlighted one of the factors that has prevented investors from piling in on Weaver Fintech’s stock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":635348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80335],"tags":[9359,44634,105761,88560,66897,103974,849,105889,105888,89372,67727,105893],"class_list":["post-653848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing","tag-alec-hogg","tag-businessday","tag-businessdaytv","tag-fintechs","tag-homechoice","tag-homechoice-international","tag-makro","tag-merchant-west","tag-neal-hoogwerf","tag-payjustnow","tag-stock-watch","tag-weaver-fintech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653848"}],"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\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653848"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":654007,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653848\/revisions\/654007"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}