Anchor group achieves R900-m delisting from JSE and fully fledged empowerment

The challenge

Anchor Group Limited is a financial services holding company which focuses on asset and wealth management. The Anchor Group announced its plans to delist from the JSE after six years as it believed that its business was more suited to the unlisted space due to increased business flexibility and cost saving factors. Additionally, all of Anchor’s direct competitors are not listed, which meant that the delisting was to eliminate any existing competitive advantage over the Anchor Group, as a consequence of the public nature of the Anchor Group’s strategies and prospects.

The RMB solution

With the cost of funding currently being the lowest in decades, RMB fully funded the share repurchase and consequent delisting from the JSE. RMB assisted the Anchor Group with a unique structure on the delisting by offering shareholders the option to stay in the unlisted vehicle or to be repurchased. Management and certain shareholders irrevocably undertook to remain invested in the Anchor Group.

RMB provided a holistic debt solution to the Anchor Group by issuing a TRP guarantee, bridge funding and ultimately term funding to settle a portion of the bridge funding. The remainder of the bridge funding will be settled through equity subscriptions by Masimong and CCPI.

Client enablement

Through the delisting, the Anchor Group was able to enhance their empowerment credentials significantly. It also levelled the playing field for the Anchor Group with its unlisted competitors.

To ensure that the shareholders meeting was held by mid-December 2020, it was critical that all shareholder documentation was released by mid-November 2020. This was a mammoth task as the final go-ahead was only received mid-October 2020. This was an incredibly quick turnaround for a regulated transaction, especially due to the regulatory requirements and extensive due process that was followed. What RMB was able to achieve is unprecedented in the market.

Simplistically, by holding the shareholders meeting on 17 December 2020 (and having all the resolutions passed), the delisting and cash flows could occur by February 2021, instead of during the second quarter of 2021 – ultimately a much more optimal outcome for both the client and shareholders.

RMB was able to execute on a very complex transaction, through close collaboration between a multi-disciplinary team to deliver a unique solution in a very tight time frame.