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# The JSE has suspended a listed company after it promised shareholders a dividend and then didn’t pay it
- URL: https://www.businessbagel.com/jse-suspends-labat-africa-over-unpaid-maiden-dividend/
- Published: 2026-08-31T02:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-31T02:29:59.000Z
- Description: Labat declared 1c a share in June, certified it could afford it, postponed the payment a day before the record date, and has still not named a new one.
- Author: Christian Maidman
- Tags: Companies, Business Bagel News

In June, Labat Africa's board put its name to a statement saying the company would still be solvent and liquid the moment its first ever dividend left the account. The money was due on 3 August. It never went out, and on Thursday the JSE suspended the company's shares.

A dividend on the JSE is not a promise, it is a timetable. The company names a declaration date, a last day to trade, a record date that fixes who gets paid, and a payment date, and the exchange holds it to all four. It also has to move the full amount to Strate, the depository that actually settles the payment, so the cash is out of the company's hands before it reaches anyone's account. Labat did neither.

## The timetable that stopped

Labat declared 1c a share on 23 June and called it a landmark achievement, the first in the company's history. With 2.268 billion shares in issue, that put the gross bill at about R22.7 million on TechCentral's arithmetic.

Then the timetable moved. On 30 July, a day before the record date, the board pushed the payment back to line it up with audited annual financial statements for the year to 31 May, after consulting management and the external auditors. A second notice the same day confirmed the amount was unchanged and that shareholders on the register at the end of July were still entitled. Neither notice named a new payment date, and none has been named since. The audited statements have not appeared.

## What the exchange said it could not establish

The JSE's notice turns on one word, and the word is uncertainty. Labat objected to the proposed suspension and put alternative settlement arrangements to the exchange; having read them, the JSE said uncertainty remains regarding the settlement of the declared dividend. It suspended the listing with immediate effect, instructed Labat to publish an announcement explaining the matter, and noted that it had placed its own notice in the interest of shareholders.

Labat listed in 1999 as one of South Africa's first black-owned listed companies, and this is the second time in roughly two years that its shares have been suspended. That one was lifted as a precondition for buying Classic International, the software distributor that is now one of the company's two operating assets.

TechCentral put four questions to the company on Friday: whether the R22.7 million was ever funded, when shareholders can expect it, on what basis the board certified solvency in June, and when the audited statements will be published. It had not answered by publication. The JSE has told Labat to explain itself in an announcement of its own, and until that lands, the last price anyone paid for a Labat share is 3 cents.