{"id":839508,"date":"2025-10-12T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=839508"},"modified":"2025-10-10T16:31:53","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T14:31:53","slug":"three-popular-businesses-in-south-africa-to-be-sold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/839508\/three-popular-businesses-in-south-africa-to-be-sold\/","title":{"rendered":"Three popular businesses in South Africa to be sold"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Old Mutual Private Equity (OMPE) is nearing the sale of its stakes in three businesses, including Primedia, 10X Investments and in2Food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OMPE was founded 25 years ago and manages billions of assets. Unlike listed equity\/stocks, private equity sees investors raise large amounts of capital to buy large company stakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These investors generally have a larger say in how the business runs as they look for ways to unlock value. For instance, OMPE has staff sit on the boards of the acquired companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking with BusinessTech, OMPE Co-Head Chumani Kula said private equity generates higher returns than listed equity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although South Africa is battling a low-growth economy, Kula said that Old Mutual Private Equity targets returns of mid- to high-20%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Private equity is a complex asset class that raises billions in funds from institutional investors, including pension funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike listed equity, which provides large amounts of liquidity to investors, private equity has a longer-term focus, with a five- to seven-year timeframe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raising capital for investments comes via funds, with OMPE currently working on its seventh fund to acquire further funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For OMPE, it is not only crucial that they can raise enough funds to acquire businesses, but they also need to ensure that their businesses are ‘exit-ready,’ as sales of stakes of companies are crucial for returns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, OMPE recently announced the sale of medical device company Medhold<\/a> to Sanlam’s private equity business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After acquiring Medhold in 2018, OMPE grew the company’s earnings by 2.6 times, while Medhold’s product portfolio also expanded significantly. Sanlam Private Equity will now handle the next phase of growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kula said that OMPE is preparing for several exits in the coming months, with three businesses looking ‘exit ready.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Primedia <\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Primedia was founded in 1994 and primarily covers the advertising and content sectors of the media industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The broadcasting division has several well-known divisions, including 947, 702, KFM 94.5, Cape Talk and Eyewitness News (EWN).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Out of Home division provides advertising opportunities across several media platforms, including digital and static billboards in South Africa and the rest of Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has also established a studio production business, which holds the licensing rights to television shows including The Masked Singer<\/em> and Deal or No Deal South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OMPE made its investment into Primedia in December 2013 via its Old Mutual Private Equity Fund IV<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it is not the only shareholder of Primedia, which also includes the Mineworkers’ Investment Company (MIC), EPE Capital Partners, and the FirstRand Group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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10X Investments<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Kula added that OMPE will soon exit 10X Investments, an employee benefits company founded in 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company offers unit trusts, retirement annuities, tax-free savings and several other investment products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It provides simple retirement solutions via low-cost index investing on a proprietary administration platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This can deliver market-indexed returns to clients at much lower fees than traditional retirement benefit providers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OMPE invested in 10X via its fourth fund, with the investment taking place in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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in2Food<\/h2>\n\n\n
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in2Food develops, manufactures and supplies a range of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), which includes fresh, chilled, prepared convenience foods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its primary customer is Woolworths, with food products also sold to Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and local quick service restaurants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OMPE invested in in2Food in 2015, again via its Old Mutual Private Equity Fund IV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Old Mutual Private Equity will soon sell its stake in several businesses, including popular food, broadcasting and investing companies. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":792369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[11953,23783,23782,1110,23781,4530],"class_list":["post-839508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-10x-investments","tag-in2food","tag-medhold","tag-old-mutual","tag-ompe","tag-primedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=839508"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":839584,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839508\/revisions\/839584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}