Johannesburg - The JSE's alternative exchange (AltX) was set to end the year with a burst of activity, with five companies listing within the next two weeks, the bourse said yesterday.
In the year to date, the AltX has listed 15 companies, including Workforce, the staffing solutions provider, which listed yesterday. This has taken this market's total to 32 companies, giving it a total market capitalisation of more than R6 billion. One company has delisted from the market so far this year.
The AltX is the JSE's platform for the listing of small and medium-sized companies with strong fundamentals.
The main board, on the other hand, listed 14 companies but had 24 delistings.
Lauren Czepek, the business development manager at the JSE, said the AltX's credibility was attracting companies to list on the platform. Quality controls, which ensured that companies were listed for the right reasons, had been adopted, giving the market greater credibility. Investor appetite was high, which was reflected by oversubscriptions for shares.
In the next two weeks companies that are expected to list include Celcom, a telecommunications technology firm; Safic, a flooring and chemicals company; and Silver Bridge, a software supplier.
Czepek said the AltX offered an enabling environment in which companies found an efficient and effective mechanism to achieve their goals. Some of the approaching listings that were coming had been work in progress for up to three years.
According to Czepek, the listing process generally takes a minimum of six months.
Asked when she thought the AltX would reach the point of having 100 listed companies, Czepek said it was still "very much a developing market". She said it would, however, make sense for the AltX to have more listed companies than the main board. The AltX had to mirror the South African economy, which had more small companies than large ones.
The JSE's main board has 386 listed companies, and value is largely concentrated in a few large players, including the two mining giants, Anglo American and BHP Billiton. The two companies account for about a quarter of the total market value of the JSE.
Czepek argued that the number of companies that could list in the long term was large given the number of small companies in the South African economy.