Black South Africans own at least 17 per cent of the 100 top companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, according to an initial study, the head of the exchange said Tuesday.
"For now we can say the total value of shares owned by blacks is 17 per cent," said Mr Russell Loubser.
The government has set a target for blacks to hold 25 per cent 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 Mr Loubser, because half of the nation's pension funds and trusts have not yet been analysed.
A growing black middle class in Africa's biggest economy owns through pension funds, trusts funds and life insurance policies nine per cent of the top 100 companies which make up 85 per cent of the JSE.
Individual black investors own eight per cent of the capital in the financial giants of the 6.4-trillion-rand ($775-billion, 588-billion-euro) exchange, researchers found.
The study analysed shareholder data and information given by companies themselves.
Source: www.africareview.com
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