South African sugar producer Tongaat Hulett will leave the Johannesburg Stock Exchange after 74 years, with shareholders receiving no delisting payout and warned not to expect future returns from their holdings.
- Tongaat Hulett will leave the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on 3 November 2026.
- Shareholders will receive no payment for the delisting and will retain unlisted shares.
- The company says investors should not expect future distributions after its business rescue process.
- Restructuring efforts will continue, with consequences for workers, creditors and sugar cane growers.
The company’s shares will be removed from the exchange at the start of business on 3 November 2026, ending a stock-market presence stretching back more than seven decades.
The decision follows more than four years of suspended trading and a prolonged restructuring process that has left the company unable to meet its obligations as a listed business.
Shareholders will retain shares in an unlisted company. However, Tongaat says no value is expected to reach them when the business rescue process concludes.
According to Tongaat’s regulatory announcement released on 12 October, its directors and business rescue practitioners supported the delisting and did not ask the exchange to postpone or reconsider it.
“No offer is being made to shareholders in connection with the Removal of Listing, and no payment will be made to shareholders in respect thereof,” the company said.
Why the exchange is removing Tongaat
The JSE said Tongaat had remained in breach of important reporting requirements, including the publication of outstanding financial information and annual reports.
Trading was suspended on 20 July 2022 after the company failed to publish its annual results for the financial year ended that March. It entered voluntary business rescue on 27 October 2022.
The exchange concluded that there was no realistic prospect of Tongaat restoring compliance. It also said keeping the listing could create an expectation that shareholders would recover value or that trading would eventually resume.
Tongaat did not appeal the decision.
A regional business facing a difficult rescue
The delisting closes a chapter in the decline of a longstanding Southern African industrial business.
Tongaat’s financial distress followed accounting irregularities that undermined confidence in its financial statements. Business Day reported that the group had sought an earlier trading suspension in 2019 after an investigation identified unreliable accounting practices. The current suspension dates from 2022.
Its restructuring also extends beyond South Africa. Earlier agreements envisaged the Vision consortium acquiring operating assets and investments in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Botswana.
Those sale agreements lapsed in February 2026. The latest announcement says restructuring options remain under consideration, including arrangements intended to preserve operating businesses.
Removing Tongaat’s shares from the exchange does not itself close its factories or end business rescue. It changes the status of investors’ holdings while efforts to resolve the company’s financial position continue.
Following delisting, investors will hold unlisted shares administered through Computershare. Transfers will require changes to the company’s share register rather than normal exchange trading.