Dematerialising the shares of three of the largest 15 companies in terms of market capitalisation marks the start of a new phase in the electronic settlement environment, Strate.
Nedcor, Sanlam and Absa's stocks have moved to Strate, the South African central securities depository for equities, over the past few weeks.
Strate CEO Monica Singer says Strate's conversion process began with the JSE's less liquid counters to ease the market's evolution from a manual to an electronic environment.
The next phase, marked by the conversion of Nedcor, Sanlam and Absa's shares, involves taking on the market's more liquid counters, all of which are scheduled to slot into Strate by the end of the year.
"We encountered no problems in the earlier phases and are currently handling the heightened settlement volumes with a good measure of comfort," Singer says. "We are well on track to meet our year-end targets."
More than 381 million Sanlam shares, 161 million Absa shares and 68 million Nedcor shares have been moved into the electronic settlement environment.
By the start of this month, 422 listed counters had moved to Strate, more than 60 of which had passed the 80% dematerialisation mark, Singer says.
About R99 billion worth of shares (or 16% of the total volume of shares in issue) have been materialised. This represents about 7% of the value of the total market capitalisation.
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