The exit of its position began in the second quarter already ...
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Coronation Fund Managers disposed of practically its entire holding in The Spar Group over the last six months, announcing its reduction to just 0.17% of the wholesaler on 17 September.
Before this it held just more than 10% of Spar, having increased its stake marginally from 9.97% to 10.4% as recently as 19 December 2025.
At that time (mid-December), Spar shares were trading in a range of between R92 and R96, lower than the firmly-above-R100 levels they had been at prior to the release of the group’s results for the 52 weeks to 26 September.
At that point, it became a lot clearer just how much strain the core business was under.
Coronation’s increase of its stake, on behalf of clients, was likely as a result of this weakness, which the investment managers may have judged as temporary. It must be noted that its entire position was not necessarily entered into at these levels.
Spar’s share price has been on a steady decline since then.
The stock is now trading at levels around half of what it had been, even after that results announcement in December.
Trading volumes
Coronation’s selling can be seen in the elevated volumes in the share over the past roughly six weeks.
Its average daily volume over the last 52-weeks has been about one million shares. However, on a number of trading days in August and September, this exceeded five million. The highest was 9.9 million shares traded on 9 September.
Coronation first announced on 27 August that it had trimmed its stake to 9.53% of Spar, from the 10.89% previously held.
Just three weeks later, this was cut to 0.17%, “from the 5.06% previously held”.
The JSE requires shareholders to report once each five-percentage point threshold is triggered.
This is what makes that announcement seem confusing, but Coronation is simply confirming that it had crossed that 5% mark.
In reality, its selling had continued between 27 August and early September, but it did not cross that 5% mark until the disposal of the final tranches of shares.
Over this period, the share hit a low (based on closing, not intra-day prices) of R37.88 – which means it is all but certain that it exited its position in Spar at prices at or below R40 a share.
In fact, its disposal of its stake in Spar began in at least the second quarter of the year (between 1 April and 30 June). In that time, its flagship Coronation Top 20 fund sold nearly 1.47 million Spar shares to reduce that fund’s holding to 14.28 million.
By the end of Q2, the holding in that single fund equated to an approximate 7% holding in Spar.
Still, given its relative size, Spar was not in the top 10 holdings of the fund. It was dwarfed by the likes of Standard Bank Group, Naspers, Aspen Pharmacare, AB InBev and Glencore.
The top 10 comprise about two-thirds of the fund.
At the end of June, when the Coronation Top 20 fund still held 14.2 million shares in Spar, the holding was its second smallest (just behind Woolworths) at 1.84%. Based on public disclosures by Coronation, it likely comprised sub-1% of its SA Equity and Smaller Companies funds.
| Five largest beneficial shareholders in The Spar Group at the end of each financial year | |||
| 30 Sept 2022 | 29 Sept 2023 | 30 Sept 2024 | 26 Sept 2025 |
| GEPF – 21.9% | GEPF – 24.96% | GEPF – 22.82% | GEPF – 18.63% |
| Coronation – 6.07% | Allan Gray – 8.05% | Allan Gray – 7.85% | Allan Gray – 8.53% |
| Old Mutual – 4.55% | Old Mutual – 6.33% | M&G – 6.7% | M&G – 6.6% |
| Vanguard – 3.94% | Coronation – 6.16% | Alexforbes – 5.54% | Alexforbes – 5.81% |
| Foord – 3.78% | M&G – 6.02% | Old Mutual – 5.49% | Coronation – 5.82% |
This article was republished from Moneyweb. Read the original here.
