AYO collapses without any reckoning for its leadership

Iqbal Survé's Sekunjalo is taking AYO Technology Solutions private after a catastrophic public market implosion. The company's failure to perform is only equalled by its governance failures

- By Yeshiel Panchia

On Friday, 23 May, the JSE confirmed in a Sens announcement what many had long anticipated: AYO Technology Solutions is being delisted.

The Sens notice was clinical. Sekunjalo, AYO’s controlling shareholder that is chaired by Iqbal Survé, had made a firm offer to buy out remaining minorities at 52¢ a share. The reasons cited were illiquidity, auditor resignations, broken banking relationships and spiralling litigation costs.

Sekunjalo framed the move as a reputational reset, but the numbers tell a different story. A company that was listed in 2017 at a valuation of R14.8-billion is now being taken off the market with a proposed R210-million buyout. More than 99% of shareholder value has been erased.

This wasn’t a correction. It was a controlled demolition. For Survé, who has repeatedly claimed that AYO’s woes were the result of a politically motivated campaign against black-owned businesses, the delisting may be the final chapter in a saga he has long sought to frame as ideological persecution rather than regulatory consequence.

The offer values AYO at a fraction of what public institutions originally paid. It marks the final act in a long collapse, executed with clinical precision and no admission of responsibility. The mechanics of the delisting have been teed up for months: collapsing liquidity, unfiled financials, unchallenged board control. Now, a deeply discounted exit.

Billions built on a lie

There’s a strong case to be made that AYO should not have been listed in the first place. In December 2017, the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) paid R43 a share to acquire 29% of a company with no real operating history, limited revenue and a pre-listing forecast that would later prove to be overcooked.