Black South African middle class grows

Black South Africans own at least 17 percent of the 100 top companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), according to an initial study, the head of the exchange said Tuesday.

“For now we can say the total value of shares owned by black South Africans is 17 percent,” said Russell Loubser.

The government has set a target for black South Africans to hold 25 percent of the locally owned shares by 2017, as part of programmes meant to bring more blacks into the formal economy after decades of exclusion under white-minority apartheid rule.

South Africans own just over half of the shares listed on the JSE.

That black-owned figure is expected to rise when the study is completed, said Loubser, because half of the nation’s pension funds and trusts have not yet been analyzed.

A growing black middle class in Africa’s biggest economy owns through pension funds, trusts funds and life insurance policies nine percent of the top 100 companies which make up 85 percent of the JSE.

Individual black investors own eight percent of the capital in the financial giants of the US$775-billion exchange, researchers found.

The study analysed shareholder data and information given by companies themselves.

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