The brothers who built WeBuyCars into a household name are making a very different kind of deal. Faan and Dirk van der Walt, through a company called AttBid, are buying out and delisting RMB Holdings, the JSE-listed investment group whose main asset is a 38.5% stake in property developer Atterbury. The all-cash offer values RMB at R654.58 million, or 47 cents a share.
A neat piece of financial engineering
AttBid is 51% owned by the van der Walt brothers and 49% by the Atterbury Property Fund, so in effect Atterbury is helping to buy out the listed company that owns a big slice of it. Almost all of RMB's value, about 92% of its portfolio, is that single Atterbury holding. Standard Bank has guaranteed the cash and the competition authorities have approved the deal. Independent expert Investec judged the price fair, though it sits right at the bottom of its 47-to-53-cent valuation range.
The timing raised eyebrows. Just a week before the bid first surfaced in February, the brothers sold R866 million worth of WeBuyCars shares, a block sale that knocked the stock from R52.85 to R44 and wiped about R3.7 billion off its market value. Faan van der Walt insists the two are unrelated, saying the Atterbury investment "was committed to long before the recent sale of shares was executed".
The hold-out
It is not quite done. The buyers already control about 56% of RMB, helped by fund manager Coronation selling its 28% stake to AttBid ahead of the announcement. But another shareholder, Breede Coalitions, holds roughly 20% and could push for a higher price, especially as the offer is barely above where the shares already trade. If AttBid gets to 90%, it can force the rest out.
There is history here too: RMB Holdings was once the parent of FirstRand and Rand Merchant Bank before unbundling them in 2020 to focus on property. If the deal clears, a storied JSE name quietly disappears, folded into a private property play, and the van der Walts add a major listed-property bet to their growing empire.
