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Johannesburg - African Rainbow Capital (ARC) Investments [JSE:AIL] announced its maiden interim results on Tuesday, reporting “healthy growth” in its key portfolios, despite difficult trading conditions.
The diversified investment fund founded by billionaire Patrice Motsepe listed on the JSE in September last year. The fund lifted its intrinsic net asset value of R8.7bn prior to listing to R9bn at the end of the year, resulting its per share value to increase from R8.46 to R8.75.
With interests ranging from mining and financial services to telecoms, ARC said it has invested R2.3bn since listing and is on the lookout for strategic investments to help boost its assets.
Commenting on the results, Motsepe said they demonstrated to investors that the company can deliver on its promise of “having a black-owned and managed investment vehicle with sound financial and non-financial businesses that can provide growth capital to South Africans”.
ARC has a 20% shareholding in mobile network operator Rain, its largest asset.
Rain plans to roll out national LTE Advance network and infrastructure that would compete in the highly competitive space dominated by large telecoms companies.
The company described Rain as one of the “disruptors” in the provision of telecoms in the county, with great growth potential in the long run.
ARC’s appetite for market disruptors was evident in the acquisition of a 10% stake in new digital bank TymeDigital, which is owned by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
The company said there is a potential of increasing its share in the bank to 15%.
“We are confident that this is going to be our star performer in the long run; we are very confident about this investment, we may end up with a 15% stake,” said co-CEO Johan van der Merwe.
By investing in TymeDigital, the company said it intends to make banking easier for South Africans and that plans are afoot to roll out the service across the country.
ARC exploration and mining investment Elandsfontein, located on the West Coast, boasts the second largest phosphate deposits in the country.
Other investments include a 16.9% shareholding in Alexander Forbes and a 19% stake in open pit mining firm Afrimat.
ARC is 51.6 % owned by African Rainbow Capital, which is wholly owned by Motsepe’s Ubuntu-Botho Investments.
ARC's share price surged by 4.07% to R6.14 at 14:41 on the JSE and reached an intraday high of R6.39.
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