{"id":861371,"date":"2026-05-25T16:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T14:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=861371"},"modified":"2026-05-25T16:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T14:36:12","slug":"the-man-who-started-with-a-r800-loan-and-created-a-r2-6-billion-business-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/861371\/the-man-who-started-with-a-r800-loan-and-created-a-r2-6-billion-business-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"The man who started with a R800 loan and created a R2.6 billion business in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A two-week holiday in South Africa inspired EOH founder Asher Bohbot to establish a R2.6 billion company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moroccan-born Bohbot grew up in Israel and got his chemical engineering degree from Ben-Gurion University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After acquiring his degree, the then 27-year-old Bohbot set off to South Africa for a holiday, which was only meant to last two weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he was a young boy, Bohbot’s family, including his five siblings, moved from Morocco to Israel, where they remained after he moved to South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his time in South Africa, Bohbot was introduced to a business owner seeking to hire a chemical engineer, a role for which he was qualified. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bohbot had agreed to stay for six months, which ultimately extended to a year. He then found himself committed to a future in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After working in the corporate sector for some time as head of logistics and IT at PG Bison, Bohbot noticed a gap in the market, which led him to leave his position to start his own business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“At first, I observed the game of IT from the recipient side. I got involved in some IT projects and then had the idea to start a business, a business that is very much what EOH\u2019s model is today: design, build and operate,” he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He recognised that IT was becoming increasingly essential for South African businesses, yet many saw it as a daunting challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To meet this demand, Bohbot established Enterprise Outsourcing Holdings, later renamed EOH, to handle the IT responsibilities for various businesses and government departments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bohbot mentioned that his business idea came to him one morning at 3 am, at which point he sketched a diagram illustrating how he envisioned the company functioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He then approached his employer at the time, who became his first customer. A year later, they agreed to do so. That customer was PG Bison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PG Bison became its first client. EOH was listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in April 1998 and remained relatively unnoticed during its first decade of operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, in 2009, its revenue exceeded R1 billion, attracting the attention of investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I have the same car, same wife and same children I had before I started EOH,” Bohbot said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company’s past challenges<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 2017, the media began scrutinising contracts between EOH and several government departments, leading to allegations of corruption. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These allegations included claims that tender bids from various government departments had been manipulated in EOH’s favour, as well as accusations of fraud against customers and suppliers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not long after, an EOH executive was implicated in a bribery scandal concerning the acquisition of government contracts from 2015 to 2016. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That same year, EOH’s long-time founder and CEO, Bohbot, stepped down and was succeeded by Zunaid Mayet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bohbot’s departure triggered a significant loss of trust in the company, causing its share price to plummet from R171 in December 2016 to under R50 in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an effort to enhance corporate governance, EOH appointed former MTN executive Stephen van Coller as the new CEO in 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the company\u2019s share price continued to decline. To address its R4.1 billion debt, EOH sold several valuable assets, resulting in a loss of R6 billion in revenue generation and R8.4 billion in net asset value. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

EOH implemented a R500 million rights offer to attract investors and help mitigate its debt issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By March 2024, EOH\u2019s share price had dwindled to R1.08, and Stephen van Coller stepped down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marius de la Rey was appointed as interim CEO, and the company was rebranded as iOCO, unveiling a new growth strategy alongside a newly appointed board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In February 2025, iOCO announced the appointment of Dennis Venter and Rhys Summerton as joint CEOs, replacing De la Rey, who had departed from the company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon their appointment, iOCO indicated that the CEOs would not receive fixed salaries, as their compensation would be based on share price performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

iOCO\u2019s share price has increased by more than 100% over the past year, effectively doubling shareholders’ investments. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A two-week holiday in South Africa inspired EOH founder Asher Bohbot to establish a R2.6 billion company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":861426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[3920,1797,14402],"class_list":["post-861371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-asher-bohbot","tag-eoh-holdings","tag-ioco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861371","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\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861371"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":861456,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861371\/revisions\/861456"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}