WeBuyCars plans to shake up the pre-owned vehicle market, and its first order of business is getting listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
WeBuyCars became a publicly-traded company with its listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) today, and CHANGECARS congratulates it on this milestone achievement. This bold step illustrates the company’s big plans for the future, which aim to make significant inroads into the South African vehicle retail space.
Starting as a small, family-owned dealership in 2001, WeBuyCars (freshly listed under the WBC trading code) has grown to comprise 15 stores with 2 800 employees, and retail more than 13 000 cars each month.
This gives WBC between 10% and 12% of the current car retail market, with plans to double this over the next four or five years. WBC’s growth since 2019 gives credence to this goal, with average profit growing by 25% per annum.
Today’s IPO (Initial Public Offering) of 417.2-million shares was the first new listing on the JSE this year, and was initially planned to have opened at R 18.75 per share. However, the first day of trading opened at R 20.00 per share, and remained between R 20.20 and R 20.70 for the rest of the day.
These higher share prices increase WBC’s market capitalization from the initial estimate of R 7.6-billion to around R 8.5-billion, and places it on a square footing with established industry giants such as Motus and CMH in the stock market, according to DailyInvestor.com.
