Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the JSE. It's absolutely wonderful to see those of you who were able to make it in person. I'd like to make a special welcome to our board member, Thabo Leo, who is here in person, and to the board members who have dialed in online. We've had about just under 300 people registering to join online, so we'll make sure that we balance the questions between online and direct questions. We really appreciate the fact that you've taken time to join us today, and we'll walk through our performance over the year, reflecting on how we've navigated what is a complex and an evolving market environment while continuing to build our resilient and diversified business.
I'll start with a high-level overview before taking you through the group performance, and Fawzia Suliman, our CFO, will then provide a more detailed breakdown of our financials. After that, I'll share some of the insights into our strategic priorities for the year before we open up for Q&A. Starting with slide four, the JSE delivered a solid impact growth of 10.4% year-on-year, translating into a headline earnings per share of 1,128.6 cents. Overall, it was very much a tale of two halves, with a pickup in trading activity in our equity markets in the second half of the year, following a more muted first half, basically due to a tough macro and political environment. As a reminder, impact was flat in the first half of the year.
Total income was up 6.5%, and our operating income, comprising revenues and margin income, increased by 5.2% year-on-year, underscoring the benefits of our diversification strategy. Non-trading income now represents 38% of total operating income, providing a strong and an important underpin, which was also supported by capital formation, with primary markets revenue up 16%, and of course, our acquisition, the JIS business, which was up 20%. We maintained disciplined cost growth while continuing to invest in our people and technology. Operating expenses were up 6.2% year-on-year, in line with expectations. We' ve also introduced a new operating cost line called project costs in order to provide a bit more transparency around strategic investments, which Fawzia will unpack shortly. Cash generated from operations remains healthy at ZAR 1.09 billion for the period, reinforcing our strong balance sheet position.
In line with this, we declared an ordinary dividend of ZAR 8.28 per share, equating to a dividend yield of 6.9%. Beyond the numbers, we continued to execute on our strategic agenda items, namely expanding our data and analytics business and also making meaningful progress in our broker-deal accounting, or BDA, system. I'll touch on this a little bit later in the presentation. Importantly, our markets remain stable and resilient. We had an all-time high of 99.97% market availability, and this is reasonably materially above our long-run average. Now, if we move to slide five, our markets did gain despite the ongoing uncertainty. Global markets had a strong year and largely driven off the back of expectations of interest rate cuts, AI-related optimism, and a resilient US economic data output. However, emerging markets did experience some headwinds, particularly with concerns around tariffs post the US elections.
This uncertainty lingered into 2025, with additional volatility, which was sparked by developments around DeepSeek's open-source AI model. The JSE all-share in 2024 was up 9.37%, outperforming the MSCI Emerging Market Index, which ended 5.3% up that year. The JSE all-share increased due to an increase in the industrial index in 2025, which was up 14.43%, the FINI 15, which was up 15.31%, while the RESI 10 fell by 9.78%. We also saw the JSE Limited's share price performance of over 30% for the period of 2024, which was outperforming all major benchmarks. South Africa's weighting in the index, disappointingly, has decreased from 9.45% at the end of 2023 to 3.16% at the end of 2024. This was largely due to the increased weighting by India, China, and Taiwan, largely reflecting an increase in the AI chip makers and India's infrastructure sector.
Now, moving on to slide six, we can't see the market sentiment quite explicitly impacting our overall market NPAT. We take a look at how the market environment influenced our overall trading activity. In our equity markets, where it was most pronounced, the first half of 2024 was defined by a risk-off sentiment, very much of a wait and see, and reduced exposure to the South African market, with quarter one seeing a significant decline in value traded, which was -24%. However, sentiment did turn more positive following the elections and the establishment of the GNU. The momentum carried into the second half of the year, supported by improved economic confidence, which resulted in value traded ending up 1% for the full year. Increased volatility in the second half of the year was driven by U.S. elections, tariff concerns, and shifting interest rate expectations.
You will see, for those of you following the markets this year, that that trend has continued. In fact, as of a day ago, we were up 45% on equity average daily value traded, material swing. You'll recall last year that we saw a shift in capital flows to offshore allocations from our local investors. That was largely due to the Reg28 offshore allowances or foreign allowances. This trend has continued into 2024. However, on the fixed income side, we did report net foreign inflows following expectations of interest rate cuts. Now, on slide seven, we're going to revisit a very familiar theme of the JSE over the past couple of years, which is the resilience of our earnings profile underpinned by revenue diversification.
The chart shows the relationship between our equity market activity, which is in the green, and our operating income, which is in the light blue. In 2023, we can clearly see the inverse relationship starting to show between trading activity and operating income. Despite, and I'm still on 2023, the 9% decline in ADV, we were able to grow operating revenue by 7%. This year, we continued to see structural resilience within our earnings as the cash equity market was only up by 1%, while operating income increased by 5% for the period. This was largely supported by our non-trading income, which was up by 7%. While non-trading income growth may not always be linear, we have meaningfully improved the mix over the years. Since 2019, our non-trading income has grown by 81.5%, with a compound annual growth rate of 12.7%.
Today, it accounts for 38% of our total operating income. It is a level that we expect to sustain and will continue to grow. As a reminder, non-trading income largely consists of market data fees reported under our information services business, JIS , margin income, colocation fees, and our primary market fees. Our ability to generate strong earnings outside of trading activity strengthens our resilience during varied market conditions. Shifting now to slide eight, this provides us with a breakdown of our capital markets revenues, which is a key feature of the capital markets diversification across our asset classes. To walk you through it briefly, the cash equity market ended marginally flat, while the equity derivatives market was down by 2%, in line with the decline in value traded.
Equity derivatives was also impacted by lower hedge activity, with our investors still on a slightly underweight to neutral positioning in South Africa. Most of that activity remains concentrated in the main index futures contract, with 84% of the activity versus 82% last year, which was down 2% year-on-year. Our bonds, FX, and interest rate derivatives grew by 8%. That was really off the back of robust bonds trading appetite, which was fueled by changes in the global rate expectations and underpinned by a high yield appeal. Despite the macro overhang and the geopolitical concerns, we still saw decent demand for South African bonds on a yield play. That was supported by decent local and foreign interest. Global volatility in interest rates and concerns about higher-for-longer inflation led to an increase in our bond market activity over other asset classes.
Ramp volatility fueled the heightened trading activity in our FX markets. Commodity derivatives revenue increased by 12%. That was supported by higher outright trading and hedging activity amid adverse weather conditions, which were affecting grains and oilseed production. The trading activity increased in the commodities area in quarter one, owing to dry weather conditions in Southern Africa and a poor harvest. By year-end, trading had normalized, although white maize prices hit an all-time high of approximately ZAR 7,000 a ton, raising food security concerns in South Africa and in our neighboring countries. Primary market revenue was up 16%, driven by higher annual listing fees and increased secondary capital raises. Additional capital raised or secondary capital raised rose quite materially from ZAR 41 billion in 2023 to ZAR 103 billion in 2024.
These trends across multiple asset classes highlight the cyclical and the structural resilience in our markets, allowing us to cushion periods of lower equity market activity while still delivering growth across other asset classes. From slide nine, I'm going to cover a little bit on our strategic progress. A key focus for this year has been the modernizing of our infrastructure, particularly the BDA system, where we've progressed from a detailed assessment phase into a live pilot. This is a multi-year project, but our early signals have been encouraging. We've also launched an expanded product that supports our clients' evolving needs. Our JSE Fixed Hub and Colo 2.0 are primary examples to indicate that we are innovating in market infrastructure.
While our information services strategy has really laid the groundwork for a significant expansion of our data offerings in 2025, JIS had another very strong year, securing 11 new clients and growing revenue by 20%. Meanwhile, we finalized the design of our bond CCP, and we published key specifications for our market participants. Beyond our product expansion, we have worked to ensure that our listings framework remains competitive, putting 19 sections of the JSE listing requirements up for public consultation. Operationally, we maintained our level one BEE status, which is very important for our clients. We recorded strong employee engagement and an all-time high client satisfaction score. Both of these we see as essential in maintaining a trusted and forward-looking exchange. With clear progress across all of these pillars, we head into 2025 focused on execution by driving forward our infrastructure products, by scaling our data and our analytics capabilities, and by driving growth across all of the segments in our business. With that, I'll hand over to Fawzia for the financial review.
Thank you, Leila, and good afternoon to everyone. Looking at our financial performance for the year, we see that our operating income, which includes operating revenue and margin income, rose by 5.2% year-on-year. This was driven by the well-diversified asset mix and strong primary market revenue growth, alongside continued expansion in non-trading income, particularly at JIS , which delivered double-digit growth. Cost management remained a key focus, ensuring a balanced approach between investment in technology and strategic initiatives whilst maintaining operational efficiency.
Our operating expenses rose by 6.2%, reflecting inflationary salary adjustments and licensing costs, as well as the execution of our business expansion plans. Despite these cost pressures, our EBITDA margin remained strong at 37.6%, slightly lower than the 38.4% in the previous year. Our net income increased by 21.3%, benefiting from a favorable interest rate environment, which contributed to NPAT growth of 10.4% and a 9.6% increase in headline earnings per share. Moving on to cash and capital allocation, we continue to maintain healthy cash generation with ZAR 1.09 billion in cash generated from operations, reinforcing our ability to self-fund strategic initiatives and to maintain a strong financial position. We remain well capitalized with ZAR 2.8 billion in cash reserves and ZAR 801 million in regulatory capital, ensuring financial flexibility to support future growth as well as shareholder returns. We have cash available for distribution of ZAR 1.5 billion.
Our CapEx came in at ZAR 147 million, 5.4% lower than the previous year, aligning with our disciplined approach to spending whilst ensuring that key investments were prioritized. In line with our dividend policy, we declared an ordinary dividend of ZAR 828.5 per share, up 5.6% from last year, and reflecting a payout ratio of 78%, which is within our 67%-100% target range. Moving on to the last chart, the group reported a return on equity of 20.2%, up from 19.4% in the prior year and in line with our long-term financial targets. A quick look at the income statement snapshot reaffirms our ability to deliver revenue growth whilst maintaining a disciplined approach to cost management. Despite the evolving and dynamic market conditions, we continue to monitor our operating leverage carefully, ensuring that we remain well positioned for sustainable earnings growth.
Moving on to slide 14, the JSE's revenue profile continues to evolve in line with our diversification strategy, ensuring resilience across various market cycles. Capital markets remained our largest contributor, accounting for 39% of operating revenue, with primary market revenue rising by 16%. This growth was supported by an increase in annual listing fees and additional capital raised, which more than doubled compared to the prior year. JSE Investor Services continued its strong growth trajectory, delivering a 20% increase in revenue supported by client wins and sustained demand for its services. Post-trade services also expanded, rising 4%, with higher BDA fees reflecting an increase in the number of transactions processed. JSE Clear reported 6% revenue growth, benefiting from higher clearing fees. Information services revenue increased by 1% as a decline in the US dollar partnership contributions offset the gains from core market data products.
However, with key foundational work completed in 2024, we are well positioned for stronger growth in 2025, with plans to scale our data marketplace and to introduce new analytics solutions. Our revenue mix continues to shift towards greater diversification, with non-trading income now contributing 38% to group revenue, reinforcing our ability to deliver stable earnings growth even in volatile market conditions. On the next few slides, we will unpack the underlying drivers for each revenue segment, starting with capital markets and JIS. Our capital markets performance for the year reflected broad-based revenue growth across key asset classes. Primary markets revenue rose 16%, driven by higher listing fees and an increase in additional listing fees from secondary capital raises. Additional capital raised increased around 2.5 times from ZAR 41 billion to ZAR 103 billion for the year. Our trading revenue remained steady.
Equity markets trading revenue was flat, with the progressive increase in value traded from quarter two to quarter four, which offset the 25% decline in quarter one of 2024. Our colocation revenue was up 10% and contributed 70% to value traded compared to 69% in the prior year. Bonds and financial derivatives revenue increased by 7%, driven by a 7% increase in bond nominal value traded and a 10% increase in the number of contracts traded in the interest rate derivatives market. Currency derivatives revenue increased by 10%, largely owing to an increase in the futures activity. The number of contracts traded was down 6%, but this was offset by an 18% increase in futures activity. Equity derivatives revenue decreased by 2%, with value traded down by 1%.
Our commodity derivatives revenue reported growth of 12%, owing to an increase in the physical deliveries, which was up 6%, as well as an increase in pricing. JIS revenue was up 20%, driven by the higher client acquisitions and the increase in margin income. Moving on to slide 16, we see that our post-trade services revenue rose by 4%. Clearing and settlements revenue declined by 1%, and this was offset by a 13% rise in BDA fees, reflecting the higher number of equity transactions, which grew from 327,000 to 363,000 daily transactions. Our funds under management revenue was down 8%, owing to the lower JSE trustees' cash balances. We see that JSE Clear revenue expanded by 6%, benefiting from higher clearing fees in commodity and interest rate derivatives, as well as the full-year impact from clearing membership fees, which was introduced in April of 2023.
Information services reported growth of 1% for the year, reflecting a slowdown in terminal subscriptions and a decrease in index fees being driven largely by our offshore index clients. Despite this, this segment remains a key strategic focus area for growth, and we expect stronger growth in 2025, albeit off a low base as we scale our data marketplace and we expand our analytics offerings. As part of this, we are focused on increasing the client engagement with our new infrastructure, which will drive higher adoption rates and stronger revenue growth over time. Core market data remains highly cash generative, though organic growth opportunities in this segment are more limited. Importantly, 70% of information services revenue is US dollar denominated, reinforcing the natural FX hedge within our business model. Moving to slide 18, operating expenses increased by 6.2% year-on-year, aligning with our guided range of 5%-8%.
The strategic direction of our business remains clear: growth through diversification, operational resilience, and disciplined cost management. Our investment strategy is centered on two key areas: our people and our technology. Personnel-related costs increased by 9.3% from ZAR 781 million to ZAR 853 million, largely reflecting annual salary adjustments and a marginal increase in LTIs vesting . Technology costs saw a 7.6% increase from ZAR 373 million to ZAR 400 million, primarily due to cloud infrastructure investments. To ensure transparency, we have introduced a new cost category, namely project cost, to reflect the spending on our long-term strategic initiatives. For the year, project costs increased from ZAR 23 million to ZAR 39 million, primarily linked to investments in information services, automation, the Bond CCP project, and the BDA modernization pilot. Depreciation and amortization declined 8.6% to ZAR 190 million, reflecting a shift towards cloud-based solutions and cost optimization across leased infrastructure.
Regulatory compliance and other fees rose by 10% to ZAR 304 million, with higher fiscal levies and increased straight pass-through costs contributing to the increase. Our general operating expenses remained stable at ZAR 380 million, with spend largely focused on operational efficiency initiatives. Overall, we continue to ensure that strategic investments continue whilst maintaining financial discipline. Moving on to CapEx, our CapEx remained well managed, coming in at ZAR 147 million compared to ZAR 155 million last year. The majority of spending, circa 75%, was allocated to maintaining the core infrastructure, ensuring the continued stability and efficiency of our trading and post-trade environments. This included systems rejuvenations, PTS platform upgrades for commodities and bond markets, regulatory enhancements for insider trading management, and early-stage investment in the BDA modernization project.
The remaining ZAR 37 million was directed towards growth initiatives, particularly our information services strategy, the development of the Bond CCP, and enhancements to the Bond Electronics Trading Platform. Looking ahead to 2025, we anticipate that CapEx will range between ZAR 190 million-ZAR 215 million, with greater emphasis on infrastructure upgrades, particularly the BDA modernization project. Moving to the next slide for a quick snapshot of our cash position as at the end of December 2024. The JSE continues to remain an inherently cash generative business, with cash generation of ZAR 1.09 billion and a closing cash and bonds balance of ZAR 2.8 billion. As a result, we maintain adequate liquidity for our business, with no requirements for additional credit lines or financing. Our capital deployment strategy remains focused on long-term sustainability, with investing activities centered around intangible asset, renewals, government bond purchases, and equity investments.
Financing activities during the period included treasury share acquisitions, the share repurchase in 2024 of 0.6% of the company's issued share capital, and the lease liability settlements. On the next slide, we break down the split of our cash and bonds balance of ZAR 2.8 billion. At year-end, our ZAR 2.8 billion in cash and bonds comprises ZAR 1.3 billion allocated to investor protection and regulatory capital, and ZAR 1.5 billion in available cash for CapEx, working capital, and shareholder returns. This conservative approach ensures that all investments are internally funded, whilst maintaining capital strength needed to support the business growth and the risk management initiatives. Moving on to dividends. For 2024, we announced an ordinary dividend of ZAR 828 per share, representing a 5.6% increase year-on-year, and this equates to a distribution of ZAR 715 million and a payout ratio of 78%.
We maintain our commitment to our dividend policy, which equates to a payout ratio of between 67%-100%. This policy enables us to have a flexible approach to balancing the cash between shareholder returns and investments in the business. Finally, on slide 23, we have outlined our guidance for financial year 2025 relating to OpEx, to CapEx, and to dividends. From an OpEx perspective, we expect cost growth to land between 5%-7%, and we expect the allocation of cost to be similar to this year, with a focus on our people, on technology, and on our growth initiatives. For CapEx, we expect to land within the range of ZAR 190 million-ZAR 215 million, as discussed earlier. Finally, as I just mentioned on the previous slide, we maintain our dividend policy of a 67%-100% payout ratio. I will now hand back over to Leila, who will conclude the rest of the presentation.
Thanks very much, Fawzia. As we look ahead, our strategic focus remains clear: protecting the core, transforming the business, expanding growth opportunities, and maintaining a sustainable marketplace. Operational resilience remains a key priority. Over the past year, we have continued to invest in the stability and the efficiency of our market infrastructure, including the modernization of our BDA system, which is progressing as planned. This investment will provide a future-proof foundation to enhance our trading ecosystem while improving the efficiency and the cost-effectiveness for all of our market participants. Beyond market infrastructure, we continue to broaden our product offerings and to enhance liquidity solutions. The expansion of the JSE Trade Explorer, Big XYT systems is set to increase our data access and market transparency.
It is really about strengthening our role as a leading provider of market intelligence. Meanwhile, Colo 2.0 continues to gain traction while we are advancing our fixed hub solutions, reinforcing our ability to provide innovative, cost-effective solutions for our trading participants. Sustainability remains an integral part of our business. We are actively evolving our listings framework to ensure that it remains globally competitive while continuing to drive the ESG initiatives through, for example, our carbon trading environment or our sustainability-linked instruments. Our commitment to transformation is reflected in our Level 1 BEE status, which we have successfully maintained alongside our client satisfaction scores and our employee engagement. With these pillars in place, we are very well positioned to deliver on long-term earnings resilience and operational excellence. Now moving on to slide 26.
As we move into 2025, our strategic execution plan is well defined with very clear milestones across market infrastructure, information services, and our post-trade capabilities. Investing in market infrastructure remains a top priority. The rollout of JSE's Colo 2.0 secondary solution, our JSE FIX Hu b, and our network alliance will strengthen our trading ecosystem and improving market connectivity and accessibility. Meanwhile, our collaboration with AWS on new projects such as Outposts and our local zone will enable greater cloud integration and enhanced processing efficiency. In the information services space, we completed the foundational work that is required to expand our market data marketplace. This year, we will focus on significantly increasing the product suite and catering for all of our major asset classes, and with particular sequencing focusing on our client demand.
Additionally, we are exploring partnerships for third-party content to host, as well as analytic services, and further enhancing our value proposition of the JSE's data ecosystem. On the post-trade side, we're progressing with the Bond CCP project, having finalized the technical framework and specifications. Meanwhile, the BDA modernization initiative is entering the next phase, where we'll focus on system migration, operational readiness, and of course, our market-wide implementation strategies. Within capital markets, we are prioritizing enhancements to block trading liquidity services, our ETP spread trading, and the expansion of structured products. Additionally, JSE Investor Services will continue to grow its market share with our asset reunification program, which I'm sure you've all seen recently launched, and focusing on delivering end-to-end solutions that will improve shareholder accuracy. With these initiatives, we remain on track to execute for our long-term vision on our strategy to ensure greater innovation, efficiency, and diversification.
Now on slide 27, I'm going to talk a little bit about our BDA project, which I know many of our market participants and shareholders have a keen interest in. The BDA transformation project remains our top priority as we modernize South Africa's post-trade infrastructure. Following the completion of our technical feasibility assessment, we successfully deployed the core AWS cloud infrastructure, and this will set the stage for full-scale migration. The pilot phase is currently underway, and testing and system integration will follow next. Next, we'll complete the pilot testing, and we'll move to full-scale migration and system readiness. The CapEx allocation for 2005-2007 has been approved, and this will ensure a structured transition. The roadmap includes in 2025 the completion of the pilot phase and early-stage migration.
Full-scale in 2026 will be full-system migration testing and market readiness preparation, then in 2027, final testing, data migration, and of course, go-live implementation. Throughout the process, we will keep the market informed to ensure a smooth transition. This upgrade will create a scalable, agile, and efficient post-trade system supporting our long-term market growth. Before we open for Q&A, I want to just reinforce our commitment to long-term value creation. We' ve strengthened our revenue mix, expanded non-trading income, and invested in critical infrastructure to ensure market resilience. Our dividend policy remains intact, and that is supported by strong cash flows and disciplined capital allocation. Looking ahead, we' ll continue executing on our strategic initiatives, expanding JSE Investor Services, Information Services, while advancing and innovating our technology-driven efficiencies.
With a clear roadmap and a solid financial foundation, we are confident in driving sustainable earnings growth while reinforcing our position as a resilient and diversified exchange. Thank you so much, and with that, we will open for questions. I'm going to ask Romy to manage the process, and she'll take a mix of online and questions in the room, and we'll probably take three at a time.
Would anyone in the audience like to ask a question?
If we can just ask if you can state your name and where you're from before you give us your question.
My name is Keenon. I'm from Investec. Well done on the results for JSE, really strong results. I have three questions. Number one is, what drove the narrower guidance in OpEx going forward? I believe the previous range was 5-8, it's now 5-7, so some guidance there. Number two, has there been any movement in any of the relationships with the MOUs, with the foreign exchanges? I know it's a pretty volatile global environment we have, but any movement or what's the sentiment on that? Number three, could you tell us more about the block trading facility that you called out in one of the slides?
Excellent question.
Thank you.
Thank you, Keenon, and thank you for your comment. I think in terms of the narrow guidance, perhaps, Fawzia can deal with that, and obviously, we've spent some time talking about the width of the guidance. I'll talk to MOUs, and then we'll ask Valdene Reddy , our Director of Capital Markets, to talk to the block trading.
We're starting with the
Okay. The first question.
Just with regard to the narrow guidance on OpEx, obviously, we did think about it very carefully. It is informed essentially by our budgets for this year, which we've spent quite a lot of time thinking about. I think we're also very cognizant of our operating leverage and how important it is going to be to maintain the discipline cost management. We do believe that it is achievable, and I think we'll just continue to monitor our expenditure through the year, especially as it relates to revenue, really with a view to delivering positive operating leverage this year.
Great. Thank you, Fawzia. In terms of our MOUs with various different exchanges, it is our strategy to expand our universe and to either via technology or other sources tap into international pools of liquidity. We are targeting a number of exchanges, and we actually hope to make some announcements in that regard in the not too distant future, in fact, reasonably imminently. In terms of the MOUs that we've signed with existing exchanges, I think one of the areas that we focused heavily is obviously in the listings space, and you would see that there are a number of potential listings in the pipeline, such as CANAL+ . We have a very close relationship with the London Stock Exchange Group, and there are a couple of other inward listings, Shuka Minerals, which you would have seen. We continue to engage with these exchanges to try and increase the listings environment. We, as you know, signed an MOU with Tadawul, which is the Saudi Stock Exchange.
We've engaged extensively on a number of areas, including market data and our solution together with the potential for listings. We recently announced towards the end of last year an expansion of our fast-track listings environment. Previously, we had six exchanges on that list. We now have 14. We have included Tadawul, which previously was not on the fast-track list when we signed the MOU. That was the intention. A number of exchanges in Europe—Paris, Dublin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Milan, Lisbon, Oslo—all part of the Euronext Group. It is our intention to continue to expand the universe, but really what we would like to do is drive towards a technology connectivity. We did this with the London Stock Exchange. Erica will remember that many, many years ago via an undersea cable, and we have seen tremendous growth and liquidity between these two centers.
We are contemplating and looking at other opportunities in that space, and as soon as we've got something to say on that, we will share that. Fawzia, do you want to talk a little bit to block trading liquidity? Thanks. One of the things we've been focusing on the exchange has really been market quality and the liquidity we have in our market. Against that, you have evolving trends and diversity of clients. Over the last 15 years, you've seen a rise in different styles of trading, more unexchanged activity that is small size, but at the same time, we serve an institutional market, South Africans, as well as the foreign interest coming back, and execution quality metrics matter. We are looking at block liquidity.
It's an extension that we brought in complex order suite, but we're looking at some type of matching facility for large-in-size trades within the FMA. There are proposals of different SIs. We've seen the evolution in European markets of pure dark pools. We will work under the ambit of what the Financial Markets Act dictates as an exchange, but it's really to serve the needs of our institutional clients locally and offshore to have good quality metrics of execution. We're calling it block liquidity service, and that's still in a design phase of how that can be integrated with our current offering as an exchange.
Thanks for that. Romy?
Leila, we've got two questions online. I'll ask. First, the one is from Russell Loubser r. He asked, for how many additional years can we rely on Leila leading the JSE? Then the second question is from James Rosen. He said, in an environment where new listings are slowing, not only in South Africa but also the likes of the LSE, what initiatives or ideas do the JSE have to boost this? Those are the two questions. Thanks.
Sorry, who was the second question from?
James Rosen.
Oh, sorry, James. Okay, excellent. Hello, Russell, and thank you for joining. Yes, that's a difficult one to say. I will be here for as long as this is needed, and we still have a fair bit to do, and we will make sure that succession plans are in line and that we give the market long-enough signalling to manage through any transitions. James, on your question on listings slowing, yes, there has been over the past three decades, in fact, a trend of contracting listings.
We have seen an improvement in the pipeline over the past year with eight listings. We have a number of new potential listings in the pipeline. The JSE has done an enormous amount in shifting and transforming listings requirements from cutting red tape to market segmentation, which officially launched on the 18th of October, and we have now had 22 companies shifting from the prime to the general segment. We are very pleased with that. We have also announced and engaged the market on a listing simplification project. Those rules are sitting with the fiscal, and we hope to have those turned around as soon as possible so that we can get on with the implementation.
Of course, there's a lot of work that happens in, as I said earlier, enabling secondary or fast-track listings environments, and our commercial team do work with the investment banking teams to run capital market showcases and to partner to encourage inbound listings. Romy?
Nothing further online, Leila. Can I ask any more questions inside?
We know that some of the SOEs in SA are actually looking to raise funding. As the local stock exchange, have you engaged with them on ways to do that going forward? Yeah.
Great. Happy to take that one, and Keenon, thank you. We have been engaging extensively with the state-owned entities and with government and with National Treasury on various listing opportunities. You would have seen in the press that some of the members of the presidency have written op-eds and commented on this.
We see great potential for certain parts, either project subsidiaries or whole SOEs where those SOEs have clean balance sheets, have a history of profit, and are bankable to list or IPO. We think this would be a great unlock and potential capital formation as well as potential to grow the economy. We are also looking, obviously, and engaging extensively on the debt market. Many of those SOEs already have raised debt capital and will continue to do so. There are also great opportunities to raise sustainable finance debt, and we are engaging those. We have probably about eight or ten SOEs that we have been engaging extensively over the past year, and we have a reasonable team of people inside the JSE and even at board level supporting us in that process.
We are also looking at the possibility of blended finance, which may include a combination of blending debt, equity, and of course, development bank-type financing where the first loss might be considered. We are excited about the possibility of capital raise. There is an appetite in certain areas, but at the end of the day, we really need to make sure that those state-owned entities that might be possible potential present possibilities for capital raise, particularly in the equity market, that the financial position is conducive to a successful listing. We are working with all of those participants. It's a long line of vision. I don't expect it to turn around in a short space, and it may well be that there's a natural process from private concessioning finance into a more blended finance solution.
Leila, we have one more online. It's from an anonymous. It says, can the team speak about JSE measures on fraud accounting or irregularities within listed companies on behalf of the investor confidence, and then penalties, spot checks, or other measures?
Great. I know that André, we had some administrative problem with André dialing in, so I would suggest that we get André to come back on that more detailed question next time offline.
Are there any further questions in the audience?
Okay, I got one more.
Thanks, Keenon.
I think retail ownership of the JSE is sub 10% at the moment. I think pre-2016, we saw a lot of retail investors move into the equity market in Brazil because rates were high there for quite a while. I am just brainstorming what could we do to further gin up investor interest among the retail investor population in SA? That is the last one. Thanks.
Thank you for that. It is actually something close to my hear. It's something that we have not quite delivered on at the level that I would like us to. I think we have still got a bit more work to do. We have been engaging with our retail brokers for some time now, looking at what needs to be done to expand that area. Firstly, I don' t think we have got a very accurate view on the retail participation rate because we do not accurately distinguish retail from non-retail trades. Secondly, of course, even though we are an institutional market, let us not forget that those funds are retail funds which are part of their pension funds. We did see a spike in retail investment, particularly into crypto during the COVID period, and that has pulled back somewhat. We are looking at a number of areas. We want to work with our market participants.
We don't want to compete with them in this space, and we want to put in enablers for this market. I think there are three areas that we are focusing on. The first is access. The second is price. It's difficult to we need to put technology in place. The third is financial literacy. JSE is doing an enormous amount in financial literacy. We had more than 50,000 students going through our trading, it's effectively a trading game, in one year. That's per annum, and that's a wonderful source of financial literacy. In addition, we also run a conference called She Invests, and we have a number of podcasts which are particularly well-supported.
We've got a very growing presence on TikTok with our trading game, and I think all of these areas are gradually starting to improve the financial literacy of the man on the ground. In addition to that, you would be aware that we've launched our campaign for unclaimed dividends, and I think a large part of that problem is not only these. We've got ZAR 4.5 billion worth of dividends in the country that are unclaimed. I feel personally very strongly that we should be doing the right thing there and making sure that those dividends find their way back into the rightful owners. Many of them have moved bank accounts, shifted, changed bank accounts, or moved home, but many of them simply don't understand the concept of a dividend.
We have launched a national campaign which is called Claim It, and I think that a large part of that campaign will go a long way in educating our overall retail grouping. I think lots more work to be done, but we're certainly up for the challenge, and we're partnering very much with our market and our stock brokers to try and enhance and increase that.
Leila, we have one more question from Catherine Loubser . She said, "CapEx guidance shows quite a big step up. Is this a catch-up from low spending in the recent years, or is it all going into new strategic projects like the BDA modernization? And is this a normal level of maintenance CapEx?" Thanks.
Maybe I'll do some of it, and then Fawzia, you might want to add. There is an element of what Catherine might argue is catch-up in the form of infrastructure upgrades. We are doing a fair bit to make sure that we do not build up technical debt, and some of it is one sort of infrastructure upgrades. We want to make sure that we keep pace and that we retain our resilience uptime. The lion's share, a large part, and what will be growing in the next couple of years is the BDA modernization, as you can expect. There are elements which are growth-focused. In terms of our multi-year view and how much we allocate to CapEx, do you want to maybe give some color to that, how we think about allocation of capital?
I mean, from a capital allocation perspective, we obviously think about it in the context of our capital allocation policy within the business. We do think that the dividend payout ratio, as per our dividend policy at the moment, gives us the flexibility that we need to invest in the business where appropriate, but also return capital to our shareholders. We are committed on both of those fronts. In terms of reinvestment in the business, we think it's important that we do maintain our infrastructure. The core business is so important to our revenue base, and we must ensure that we maintain that, and we'll continue to do that. We are also looking at what we need to do from an investment perspective. Leila spoke about the BDA modernization, which is going to feature quite highly in terms of our CapEx spend in the next two or three years, but it's not the only thing we're looking at. We continue to invest in growth initiatives such as the information services strategy.
We're looking at the bond CCP. We constantly look at it in terms of maintaining this healthy mix between, number one, investing in the business and returning capital to our shareholders, and then within the business between maintaining and then growing the business as well. Thanks.
Thanks.
Leila, that looks like it's all from our side online. Thank you.
Great. Excellent. If I can just take this opportunity to wrap up. Firstly, thank you very much for your time and consideration. Secondly, we're very pleased with the results. We've had a challenging year of two halves. We've consistently focused on making sure that we are diversifying our revenues. Our cash generation remains high. Our balance sheet is clean. The acquisitions that we have made are returning double-digit returns, and we are focused on bringing down costs for our market participants, making sure that we are innovative and solution-focused, and making sure that we are investing appropriately in innovation and resilience. We are very grateful for your support, and we will be chatting to many of you in our one-on-ones. Thank you very much for coming or dialing in.
Thank you.