Blu Label co-founders Mark and Bretty Levy purchased R122 million worth of shares in their own company on Monday, days after announcing a R4.9 billion net loss.
Blu Label Unlimited co-founders, brothers Mark and Brett Levy, purchased R122.7 million worth of shares in their own company, with each purchasing over 7.7 million ordinary shares.
The acquisition of shares followed the finalisation of the restructuring of Blu Label subsidiary Cell C and its listing on the JSE. Following the listing, Blu Label continued to hold a 49.53% stake in Cell C.
The Levy brothers are one of South Africa’s most successful technology entrepreneurs. They built Blu Label Unlimited, which has a market capitalisation of R7.42 billion.
The pair grew up in a modest household in Delmas on the East Rand of Johannesburg and became close early in life after their father’s untimely death.
The Levys were business partners from a young age. They sold televisions, hi-fi sets, and car radios while still in high school.
This set the stage for their future business as the brothers soon expanded into insurance replacements and the distribution of consumer electronics.
Their first big break came in 2001, when Telkom awarded them a national contract to distribute prepaid airtime for fixed-line services.
To fulfil this contract, the Levys had to build a vast distribution network for prepaid airtime through their business, The Prepaid Company (TPC).
The scale of the network soon attracted other major players looking for airtime distribution, including Vodacom, MTN and Cell C.
TPC replaced physical scratch cards with an electronic airtime distribution system, reducing logistics costs and simplifying merchant inventory management.
In June 2001, TPC became Blue Label Telecoms. It rapidly became a massive success, and the Levys listed their company on the JSE six years later.
The business expanded into utility vouchers, starter packs, prepaid data, and ticketing. Reflecting the shift into more sectors, Blue Label Telecoms changed its name to Blu Label Unlimited.
Blu Label Unlimited founders and co-CEOs Brett and Mark Levy
On Monday, Blu Label disclosed the on-market acquisition of shares by the Levy brothers, who each purchased 7.76 million ordinary shares on 27 August 2026.
Together, the pair purchased 15.52 million Blu Label shares with a total transaction value of R122.7 million. The price per share was R7.90.
The Levys purchased the shares through BSC Technologies, an associated company of which they are both directors.
BSC Technologies is an unlisted private holding and investment company that they own. It didn’t feature at all in Blu Label’s consolidated financial statements for the year ended 31 May 2026.
The purchase of shares by the company’s founders came a week after Blu Label Unlimited published its annual financial results.
These revealed that Blu Label was impacted by a series of strategic transactions related to the acquisition of Cell C and its costly restructuring before its public listing.
Blu Label recorded a net loss of R4.88 billion, while revenue slipped 7% year-over-year to R14 billion. Headline earnings per share declined 82% down to 83.58 cents per share.
However, the company said that its underlying performance, ignoring the short-term financial impact of the Cell C restructuring and JSE listing, was strong.
To demonstrate this, Blu Label presented normalised financial results, which included a net profit after tax of R677 million, and core headline earnings of 75.33 cents per share, as opposed to a loss.
It said that revenues were strengthened by the performance of its non-telecoms business. The company sells prepaid electricity, ticketing, PINless top-ups and universal vouchers.
Universal vouchers in particular provided significant support to the company’s normalised revenue growth, as BluVoucher sales increased by 22% in the year.
Furthering the argument that the company’s underlying performance is stronger than its reported financials, Blu Label declared a gross dividend of 10 cents per ordinary share.
“Together with the interim dividend of 43.56 cents per ordinary share declared in February 2026, this brings the total dividends declared in the year ended 31 May 2026 to 53.56 cents per share,” it said.
“As the final dividend was declared after the reporting date, it has not been recognised in the financial statements for the year ended 31 May 2026.”
“The opportunities we are pursuing require patience, partnership and disciplined execution,” said Mark Levy, following the release of the results.
“However, we have a stronger, more focused Group, a clearer strategy and a growing portfolio of opportunities that can scale.”
