How South Africa’s capital markets died

There were over 800 JSE-listed companies in the 1990s. Now only circa 280 JSE-listed companies today, argues the writer.

By Dr Duarte da Silva

Dear colleagues,

I write this not in anger, but in sorrow. And with the weight of 30 years spent in markets that made South Africa exceptional.

I have spent that time at some of the largest investment banks in the world — Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Macquarie — and across those years I have seen capital markets function at their best and at their worst. I know what a healthy market looks like. I know what a dying one looks like.