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Investment holding company Brait Plc has entered the final stretch of its long-term wind-down strategy, announcing a R2.5 billion rights offer to eliminate historical debt constraints, recapitalise a surging Virgin Active, and pave the way for a total unbundling of its remaining assets.<\/p>\n
The group\u2019s audited financial results for the year ended 31 March 2026 reveal strong operational performance across its major investments, providing a solid operational runway for its ultimate exit optimisation.<\/p>\n
Brait\u2019s net asset value (NAV) per share increased by 7% to R3.27, while IFRS headline earnings per share climbed to 34 cents from 23 cents in the prior financial year. Since March 2020, the company has successfully reduced its net debt from R7 billion down to its current level of R1.7 billion.<\/p>\n
Brait share price<\/strong><\/p>\n The mechanics of the ultimate value unlock <\/strong><\/p>\n To clear the final hurdles of its corporate dissolution, Brait has outlined a multi-step capital restructuring framework. The newly announced R2.5 billion rights offer is priced at R1.51000 per share, representing a 25% discount to the Theoretical ex-Rights Price (Terp) and an implied 43% discount to the post-rights offer NAV per share.<\/p>\n Listen\/read: ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The board explained the specific goals required to conclude its mandate: \u201cBrait is in the final stages of its stated strategy to unlock value for its shareholders through the distribution of its remaining assets to shareholders.<\/p>\n \u201cAchievement of this requires: optimising the positioning of Virgin Active for a listing or sale of the business; the sale of Brait\u2019s stake in New Look; repayment of any residual Brait debt to facilitate an unbundling of the remaining listed assets to its shareholders.\u201d<\/p>\n The cash raised through the rights offer, combined with R1.8 billion in proceeds recently realised from cashing out a portion of its stake in Premier, will be deployed immediately to fund two primary goals:<\/p>\n To ensure execution certainty, Brait has secured an irrevocable underwriting commitment from billionaire Christo Wiese\u2019s Titan and its affiliates, who hold 39.3% of the company, to fully back the R2.5 billion rights offer.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Brait has also expanded its revolving credit facility (RCF) limit with lenders RMB and Standard Bank to R2.5 billion at an interest rate of Zaronia plus 267 basis points.<\/p>\n Portfolio breakdown: Operational surges across the board<\/strong><\/p>\n Brait\u2019s underlying companies delivered highly resilient trading outcomes for the period, marked by significant double- and triple-digit operational growth.<\/p>\n Brait\u2019s underlying investment portfolio demonstrated strong operational momentum, characterised by year-on-year Ebitda [earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation] growth of 37% for Virgin Active, 18% for Premier, and over 100% for New Look.<\/p>\n ADVERTISEMENT:<\/p>\n CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Read: Premier posts double-digit earnings growth, lifts dividend<\/p>\n Virgin Active (54% of Brait\u2019s total assets)<\/strong><\/p>\n The premium health club operator saw a 37% year-on-year surge in Ebitda to \u00a3110 million for the period ending 31 December 2025, driven by its ongoing wellness strategy, membership yield growth, and high returns on gym refurbishments.<\/p>\n Premier (36% of Brait\u2019s total assets)<\/strong><\/p>\n The JSE-listed consumer packaged goods giant continued its strong operational trajectory despite persistent inflationary pressures on consumers. Revenue climbed 7% to R21.2 billion, while Ebitda expanded 18% to R2.8 billion, pushing its Ebitda margin up to 13.1%.<\/p>\n The performance was primarily anchored by its MillBake division. Brait\u2019s holding now sits at 19% following strategic share placements and cap-and-collar monetisation manoeuvres used to fund the group\u2019s wind-down pool.<\/p>\n Read: Premier posts double-digit earnings growth, lifts dividend<\/p>\n ADVERTISEMENT:<\/p>\n CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n New Look (5% of Brait\u2019s total assets)<\/strong><\/p>\n Despite a tough UK fashion retail environment that caused overall revenue to drop, New Look\u2019s aggressive cost-right-sizing and digital transformation model yielded a massive operational recovery, with Ebitda increasing by over 100% year-on-year to \u00a337 million.<\/p>\n Its in-app loyalty programme, \u2018Club New Look\u2019, expanded to over 1 million members during the financial year.<\/p>\n The post-transaction horizon<\/strong><\/p>\n Upon successful completion of the rights offer and the subsequent bond redemptions, Brait will emerge with a drastically minimised debt obligation (consisting only of an undrawn R1.3 billion baseline on its RCF), zero British pound exchange rate risk, and three highly capital-efficient underlying assets.<\/p>\n Management anticipates that the combination of expansionary capital expenditure and structural debt reduction will position its unlisted businesses perfectly for optimised corporate listings, independent sales, or direct unbundling\u2019s to shareholders within the next two years.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n #Brait #launches #R2.5bn #rights #offer #endgame #strategy #enters #final #phase<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Investment holding company Brait Plc has entered the final stretch of its long-term wind-down strategy, announcing a R2.5 billion rights offer to eliminate historical debt constraints, recapitalise a surging Virgin… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10141,10144,5724,906,61,1398,3222,10142,10143,127],"class_list":["post-7920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing","tag-brait","tag-endgame","tag-enters","tag-final","tag-launches","tag-offer","tag-phase","tag-r2-5bn","tag-rights","tag-strategy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u2018There\u2019s a lot of opportunity to drive costs out\u2019 \u2013 Premier CEO
Virgin Active\u2019s \u2018third space\u2019 plan with offices
Virgin Active: Smoothie operators<\/p>\n\n
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