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Canal Plus will list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on June 3, becoming the first French company to trade on Africa's largest stock exchange, as the French media conglomerate presses ahead with its integration of MultiChoice and DStv despite a subscriber decline that has made the turnaround harder than initially projected.
The JSE listing was a regulatory condition attached to Canal Plus's acquisition of MultiChoice, which it completed on December 5, 2025 after a prolonged mandatory buyout process. MultiChoice was delisted from the JSE five days later. The secondary inward listing of Canal Plus, approved by both the JSE and the Financial Surveillance Department of the South African Reserve Bank through a fast-track process, fulfils that commitment and gives South African investors a direct way to buy shares in the company. Canal Plus will retain its primary listing on the London Stock Exchange, where it has traded since December 2024 after being unbundled from Paris-based Vivendi SA. Shares traded on the JSE will be fully fungible with those on the LSE.
The listing arrives at a commercially difficult moment. Canal Plus's Q1 2026 trading update showed that MultiChoice's revenue declined from 657 million euros, approximately R12.7 billion, in Q1 2025 to 617 million euros, approximately R11.9 billion, in Q1 2026. The DStv subscriber base fell from 14.9 million at the end of the previous financial year to 14.4 million, as South African and pan-African consumers continue migrating to cheaper streaming alternatives including Netflix, Disney Plus and local services.
Canal Plus has responded with a structural restructuring. It shut down the Showmax streaming platform on April 30, moving its content onto the DStv platform to consolidate the group's streaming offer under one roof. It is initiating a voluntary severance plan at MultiChoice across support functions and launching a restructuring programme at Irdeto, MultiChoice's technology and cybersecurity subsidiary. It has also broken with MultiChoice's longstanding tradition of annual April subscription increases, with DStv and GOtv prices unchanged this year.
CEO Maxime Saada described the first quarter as a solid start to 2026, saying the integration of MultiChoice is progressing well with top management in place and the first commercial initiatives launched. The company is targeting flat revenue for the full year 2026 and adjusted EBIT of 735 million euros, with 250 million euros in accelerated synergy savings from the integration.
Canal Plus is ultimately owned through Vivendi's restructuring by the Bolloré family, the French industrial and media dynasty whose patriarch Vincent Bolloré has faced extensive legal scrutiny in France and across Africa for allegedly trading political favours in exchange for port contracts across West Africa. Vincent Bolloré was indicted in 2021 for corruption. The broader Bolloré Group's African business relationships are a persistent subject of governance debate on the continent, providing a backdrop that South African retail investors will be aware of as the Canal Plus JSE listing opens trading on June 3.
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