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The brothers who built South Africa's biggest used-car marketplace from a R400 Yamaha motorbike and a backyard hobby are moving into property, and they are doing it by taking a JSE-listed company private.
Faan and Dirk van der Walt, the billionaire co-founders and co-CEOs of WeBuyCars, are set to take control of RMB Holdings (RMH) through a vehicle called AttBid, which is 51% owned by the brothers and 49% by Atterbury Property Fund. On April 8, RMH and AttBid released a joint JSE announcement confirming AttBid's mandatory offer to acquire all RMH shares not currently held by Atterbury, at R0.47 per share.
The deal values the company at R654.58 million, barely above RMH's current market value of R640.75 million. Once completed, AttBid will hold 71.65% of RMH, with Atterbury holding the remaining 28.35% directly. The van der Walt brothers' effective economic interest in RMH will be approximately 36.54%. The transaction is expected to close by June 1, with May 26 the last day for shareholders to trade and participate in the offer. If AttBid acquires 90% or more of the outstanding shares, it can compulsorily acquire the remainder. The intention is to delist RMH from the JSE entirely. Standard Bank South Africa has provided an irrevocable unconditional guarantee to back the cash settlement. Investec, acting as independent expert, concluded that the terms of the offer are fair and reasonable to RMH shareholders, though the offer price sits at the bottom of Investec's estimated fair value range of R0.47 to R0.53.
The share sale question
The deal arrived at an awkward moment on the brothers' public calendar. On February 2, 2026, Faan and Dirk sold R866.4 million worth of WeBuyCars shares — a block sale that sent the stock from R52.85 to R44.00 within days and wiped R3.7 billion off WeBuyCars' market capitalisation. Seven days later, on February 9, AttBid announced its intention to acquire RMH.
The proximity of the two events triggered immediate speculation that the brothers had sold WeBuyCars shares to fund the property deal. The timing looked particularly pointed given that Dirk had bought 450,000 WeBuyCars shares in November 2025 — just three months before the sale.
WeBuyCars pushed back firmly. "Faan and Dirk have been invested in Atterbury-related assets for many years, and this opportunity was committed to long before the recent sale of shares was executed," Faan van der Walt said in response to queries from Daily Investor. "The timing of the sale of shares and this announcement are unrelated." The company described the February share sale as personal investment diversification and estate planning. After the sale, the brothers and entities linked to them hold approximately 5.81% of WeBuyCars' issued share capital.
Who the brothers are
Adriaan Stephanus Scheepers van der Walt — known as Faan — and his brother Dirk Jacobus Floris van der Walt grew up in Bronkhorstspruit in a working-class household. Their father Koos worked as a security guard at the CSIR after losing his previous job. Their mother was a teacher. Koos taught the boys how to fix cars, and both spent their early years under bonnets.
Faan bought his first motorbike while still in high school in 1988 — a Yamaha XT500 for R400 — did some work on it and sold it for R450. He later recalled the feeling of that first deal as the moment the entrepreneurial spirit took hold. He went on to study teaching at the University of Pretoria; Dirk completed a BCom in marketing.
Faan taught for five years, including two in the UK with his wife Tanja in 1998 and 1999, living off one salary and saving the other. The UK savings became the startup capital for WeBuyCars. They launched the company in 2001 in Centurion and built a website — Dirk's idea, which Faan initially resisted. "I said what for?" Faan recounted. The name WeBuyCars was, as Faan put it, "surprisingly" available.
The business grew slowly and organically through the 2000s. In 2010 they built their first warehouse in Pretoria East with capacity for 100 cars. Six months later they had to buy the neighbouring plot. The company expanded nationally through the 2010s and by December 2019 had 1,000 employees. In 2020 Transaction Capital acquired 49.9% for approximately R1.86 billion and later raised that stake to 74.9% for an additional R1.6 billion. The brothers listed WeBuyCars independently on the JSE in April 2024.
Today WeBuyCars sells an average of 15,000 vehicles a month across 129 branches and buying pods with 3,600 employees, and carries a market capitalisation of roughly R18 billion. The brothers' combined proceeds from WeBuyCars transactions alone have generated over R5 billion.
What RMH is
RMH Holdings is not primarily a business most South Africans interact with. It was once the parent company of FirstRand and Rand Merchant Bank, but unbundled those interests in 2020 to focus solely on its stake in Atterbury — one of South Africa's largest private property developers, with assets spanning retail, commercial and residential developments. Having already disposed of its banking interests, RMH's remaining value is essentially its Atterbury-linked property position.
The board described AttBid as "the most natural acquirer" of RMH, given Atterbury's existing 49% stake in AttBid. The deal effectively collapses the listed structure that wrapped RMH's property exposure and brings it under direct private ownership. AttBid had been steadily accumulating RMH shares over the two months before the April 8 announcement, with the combined AttBid and Atterbury holding rising to 42.59% of the company by the time the mandatory offer was formally confirmed. Coronation Fund Managers, which held 28% of RMH at the end of September 2025, had already disposed of its position to AttBid ahead of the announcement.
For the van der Walt brothers, the RMH deal marks the most public step yet in a broadening of their investment portfolio beyond the automotive business they built from the ground up — and a bet that private property, structured through a long-standing Atterbury relationship, is where they want some of that capital next.
