IN SHORT: Canal Plus will conduct a secondary inward listing of its ordinary shares on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on June 3, 2026, becoming the first French company ever to trade on the JSE. The listing fulfils a regulatory commitment tied to Canal Plus’s acquisition of MultiChoice, which was completed on December 5, 2025. The company will trade under the code CNP in the Media sector alongside its primary listing on the London Stock Exchange. DStv’s subscriber base fell from 14.9 million to 14.4 million in Q1 2026 and MultiChoice revenue declined 6% as the turnaround remains in its early stages.
Canal Plus, the global media conglomerate that controls DStv, GOtv, SuperSport and M-Net across Africa, will begin trading on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange next Tuesday June 3, marking the first time a French company has listed on Africa’s largest stock exchange and giving South African investors direct access to a media business with over 42 million subscribers across 70 countries. The secondary inward listing was approved by the JSE through a fast-track process and received Financial Surveillance Department clearance. Canal Plus retains its primary London Stock Exchange listing. JSE-traded shares will be fully fungible with LSE shares.
- Canal Plus completed its mandatory buyout of MultiChoice on December 5, 2025, following a prolonged acquisition process that began with a voluntary offer at R105 per share in 2024. MultiChoice was delisted from the JSE five days after the takeover closed. The June 3 Canal Plus listing restores a listed African media vehicle for JSE investors.
- Canal Plus will trade under the code CNP in the Media sector, Radio and TV Broadcasters sub-sector. As of the day prior to issuing its pre-listing statement, Canal Plus had a market capitalisation of £2.25 billion, approximately R51 billion. Each JSE share has a nominal value of €0.25 (R4.12).
- Canal Plus’s Q1 2026 trading update showed MultiChoice revenue declining from €657 million to €617 million year on year, a 6% fall in euro terms, as the DStv subscriber base fell from 14.9 million to 14.4 million. The subscriber loss reflects continued migration to cheaper streaming alternatives including Netflix, Disney Plus and local services across South Africa and other African markets.
- The Showmax streaming service was retired on April 30, 2026, with content migrated to DStv. Canal Plus described the Showmax shutdown as a cash-burn elimination: the service was consuming resources without a credible path to profitability as a standalone platform. The Irdeto cybersecurity subsidiary, which provides content protection technology to broadcasters globally, is simultaneously in a formal restructuring consultation phase.
- A voluntary severance programme for MultiChoice staff is being implemented as Canal Plus moves into the operational execution phase of its integration strategy. The company targets €250 million in accelerated adjusted EBIT synergies by end-2026, ahead of its original timeline. CEO Maxime Saada described Q1 as a solid start to the year.
- Canal Plus’s sub-Saharan Africa franchise, built through MultiChoice, covers more than 40 African countries with 23 million pay-TV subscribers under the Canal Plus Africa and DStv brands. The company’s strategic thesis for Africa is population growth: the continent is expected to reach 2 billion people by 2050, and Canal Plus sees the pay-TV penetration opportunity as fundamentally a long-duration demographic story rather than a near-term subscriber growth story.
The Canal Plus JSE listing is consequential for the South African media sector beyond its market cap. It introduces a globally scaled competitor with deep content relationships, a Paris-London capital structure and aggressive cost targets into a market that had previously been dominated by a single listed incumbent. For the JSE’s media sector, the arrival of a company with 42 million global subscribers alongside its African-specific subscriber base creates a very different listed landscape from the MultiChoice-only market that preceded it. South African fund managers previously locked out of the Canal Plus story by its London listing will now be able to express a view on the African pay-TV market directly.
The Bigger Picture: Canal Plus is listing during the most difficult operational period of its MultiChoice integration. Subscribers are declining. Revenue is falling. Showmax has been closed. Irdeto is being restructured. For investors, the question is whether these are temporary integration pains preceding a DStv turnaround or structural signals that pay-TV is in permanent decline across Africa as smartphones and streaming erode the model. Canal Plus’s management argues it is the former. At R51 billion market capitalisation, the JSE will provide a daily verdict on which thesis investors believe.
Source: Moneyweb, May 2026 / TechCentral, May 2026
