JSE at 100,000: Canal+ and the Inward Listing Era

22 May 20269 min readBy Derry Thornalley

Canal+’s historic JSE listing is the clearest statement yet that Africa’s largest exchange has reached the international standing that demands institutional-grade indexation to match.

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On 3 June 2026, Canal+, the global media and entertainment company that completed its acquisition of MultiChoice in 2024, will conduct a secondary inward listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The listing — which awaits final JSE approval confirmed as imminent at the time of writing — will make Canal+ the first French company ever to list on Africa’s largest bourse. The inward listing fulfils a specific commitment made to South African competition authorities as a condition of the MultiChoice acquisition, and will complement Canal+’s primary listing in London.

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The announcement arrived alongside Canal+’s first-quarter 2026 trading update, which showed total group revenue of €2.17 billion, a slight year-on-year dip of 0.4 per cent when MultiChoice is included. The integration of MultiChoice is, by the group’s own description, in its operational execution phase: a MultiChoice turnaround plan is underway, the Showmax streaming service has been retired, and a voluntary severance plan for MultiChoice staff is being implemented. The group maintains a target of €250 million in accelerated adjusted EBIT synergies by 2026. The JSE listing is intended to deepen Canal+’s roots in Africa and improve share liquidity for the group’s existing South African shareholder base.

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What the JSE has actually achieved

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The Canal+ listing arrives at a moment of genuine strength for the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. As of January 2026, the JSE held a market capitalisation of R24.22 trillion — roughly $1.48 trillion at prevailing exchange rates — and 431 listed companies. The FTSE/JSE All-Share Index reached 100,000 points in January 2026, an all-time record and a milestone that marks the exchange’s evolution from a regional mining bourse into a diversified global-quality marketplace. The JSE accounts for approximately 60 per cent of Africa’s total equity market value and is, by market capitalisation, larger than the next nine African stock exchanges combined.

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The exchange ended 2025 with six new listings, including telecommunications company Cell C, and enters 2026 with a pipeline that includes Canal+, Coca-Cola Beverages Company Africa, and local firm Fidelity Securities. The number of delistings has decreased significantly relative to prior years, which the JSE’s Head of Primary Markets has attributed to successful regulatory and commercial reforms that have made listing on the exchange more attractive and more sustainable for listed entities. The JSE’s FY2025 financial results delivered an all-time high net profit after tax, reflecting both the strength of South African market conditions and disciplined operational delivery by the exchange itself.

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Beyond equities, the JSE has been expanding its product range with notable ambition. The exchange has listed new actively managed ETFs, including an AI Innovation ETF, a China Balanced Feeder ETF, and the world’s first nature-linked performance-based bond on its sustainable finance platform. The range of instruments available on the JSE now encompasses equities, bonds, derivatives, ETFs, and ESG-linked instruments in a breadth that few African exchanges can match and that rivals emerging-market exchanges in other regions.

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Why this matters beyond South Africa

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The Canal+ inward listing matters for the broader African capital market development story because it demonstrates that the JSE is achieving genuine global recognition as a destination for international company listings — not just as a market for South African domestic companies or commodity-linked equities. A global media company with 70-country operations choosing to list in Johannesburg, even as a secondary listing, signals that the exchange is regarded as a meaningful window for accessing African investor capital and deepening African market roots.

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For the rest of the continent, the JSE’s strength is a double-edged reality. On one hand, the exchange’s scale and liquidity create a gravitational pull that makes it the most viable listing destination for companies with continental ambitions. The African Exchanges Linkages Project, which connects eleven African exchanges including the JSE, is designed to extend some of that gravitational benefit to smaller exchanges. On the other hand, the JSE’s dominance means that the development of other African equity markets — in East, West, and Central Africa — requires deliberate investment in market infrastructure, regulatory capability, and corporate governance standards that can make those markets viable complements to, rather than dependent annexes of, the Johannesburg exchange.

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Why Veri is committed to this kind of moment

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Veri exists because we believe African capital markets deserve institutional-grade infrastructure — built for them, not imported to them — and because we are convinced the next twenty years of growth on this continent will be written in part by the people who build that infrastructure.

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The JSE’s continued growth — in market cap, in listed instruments, in product breadth, and in its attractiveness to global companies seeking African exposure — validates the proposition that African equity markets can reach and sustain institutional-grade standards. But a stock exchange that reaches 100,000 index points and attracts international inward listings creates new demands on the indexation and data architecture that institutional investors use to navigate it. When Canal+ lists on the JSE alongside established index constituents from mining, banking, retail, and technology sectors, the benchmark that reflects that universe needs to be constructed with precision, maintained with discipline, and reported with the transparency that global allocators require.

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Veri’s indexation methodology is built for exactly this environment: a market that is growing in complexity, adding instruments across multiple asset classes, and attracting both domestic and international capital. Accurate index construction — determining the right constituents, the right weightings, the right rebalancing discipline, and the right corporate action treatment — is not a passive exercise. It is the analytical backbone of every institutional allocation decision that references the JSE.

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How this adds value at every level of the finance sector

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For South African and continental policymakers, the JSE’s sustained strength and its ability to attract international inward listings is a significant endorsement of the regulatory and governance environment that governs Africa’s largest market. The Financial Sector Conduct Authority’s role in maintaining the regulatory standards that make JSE listing attractive — disclosure requirements, corporate governance codes, market surveillance — is a direct input into the exchange’s international standing. That standing, in turn, is a sovereign asset that affects how South Africa and the broader region are perceived by global capital markets.

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For corporate issuers considering primary or secondary JSE listings, the Canal+ precedent matters because it demonstrates that the exchange’s inward listing regime is functional, credible, and capable of accommodating global companies with complex corporate structures. Companies with African operations that are considering how to access South African institutional capital — whether through primary listings, secondary inward listings, or dual listings — now have a clear reference point in Canal+’s experience.

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For institutional investors — South African pension funds, unit trust managers, and foreign emerging-market allocators — the JSE’s growing product range creates genuine portfolio construction opportunities. The addition of actively managed ETFs, ESG-linked instruments, and now international media exposure through Canal+ gives portfolio managers a broader toolkit than the JSE offered even three years ago. The exchange is moving from being primarily a window on South African equities to a multi-asset, multi-geography platform for African and globally oriented institutional allocation.

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For the private economy, the JSE’s SME Rise Enterprise Accelerator Programme — the 2026 cohort of which was announced alongside major exchange developments — represents the deliberate effort to connect the exchange’s capital-raising function to the small and medium businesses that form the backbone of South Africa’s productive economy. An exchange that serves only blue-chip multinationals is not meeting its full mandate. The SME pathway to capital market funding matters as much for long-term economic vitality as the headline listings.

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What this contributes to African growth — short term and long

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In the near term, Canal+’s JSE listing contributes to the exchange’s depth, its international visibility, and the breadth of instruments available to South African institutional investors. For Canal+ itself, the listing deepens its African commitment at a moment when the company is in the operational integration phase of a major acquisition, signalling to African employees, regulators, and consumers that South Africa is not a market it will eventually exit, but one it intends to grow from.

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Over the longer term, the JSE’s trajectory — toward higher market capitalisation, broader product range, greater international integration, and a more diverse listed company base — is the most visible expression on the continent of what an African equity market can achieve when it combines scale, governance, and regulatory discipline consistently over decades. The lessons of the JSE’s development are the most immediately applicable lessons for every other African exchange that aspires to play a meaningful role in its domestic economy. Veri is here to help build the infrastructure that translates those lessons into actionable benchmarks and reliable data across the continent.

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Closing — what the JSE at 100,000 actually means

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The FTSE/JSE All-Share Index at 100,000 is a headline, not an analysis. The analysis is that Africa’s largest exchange has reached a level of market depth, regulatory credibility, and international integration that makes it a genuinely first-tier emerging-market venue by any reasonable assessment. Canal+’s choice to list in Johannesburg rather than only in London — where its primary listing already sits — is a vote cast by a multinational with 70-country operations for the JSE as the right window on African investor capital.

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Veri reads that vote, and what it requires. A market at that level of development demands infrastructure to match: indices that accurately reflect what is listed, benchmarks that institutional investors can rely on, and data that keeps pace with a product range that is expanding by the month. Building that infrastructure — not importing it from somewhere that did not build it with Africa in mind — is the commitment Veri has made.

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#Africa #JSE #SouthAfrica #Listings #Veri

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