By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Dis-Chem founder Ivan Saltzman has distributed the lion’s share of his equity in the group to two of his sons, Dan and Mark Saltzman.
The shares were previously held by one of the founders’ investment vehicles, Ivlyn Local Investment Holdings.
At the closing price on 19 June, the shares are worth R6.8 billion. It is unclear on the tax implications of this distribution.
The group says Saltzman [Ivan] is “in the process of restructuring his interest in the Dis-Chem share portfolio which is held through Ivlyn Local Investment Holdings Proprietary Limited”.
“This restructuring involves the distribution 217 125 386 ordinary shares. All distributed shares will remain within the Saltzman family, thereby continuing current family ownership.”
It notes that the transaction will also not affect the liquidity of the group’s shares on the JSE.
Before this transaction, co-founders Ivan and Lyn Saltzman indirectly held 252 million shares in the group, equal to 29.31%.
In 2021, the Saltzmans lowered their shareholding in the group from above 50% to around 31% through a number of deals.
They sold a 7% stake in the company for almost R2 billion to investors in the open market and also sold a 3.75% stake to senior executives, including Rui Morais, who succeeded Ivan Saltzman as CEO in July 2023.
They sold a further 10% to black economic empowerment groups, including Royal Bafokeng Holdings and an outfit called Black Panther (linked to Sandile Zungu’s Zico Investments).
In 2025, Ivlyn entered directly into a management retention scheme with eight key executives for R885 million worth of shares, after an initial lock-up period (four years). These shares are subject to “incremental vesting over a subsequent five-year period”. It said the “management retention scheme will be vendor-financed by the selling shareholder [Saltzman] at no cost to Dis-Chem”.
Morais received close to half (R408.5 million worth of shares), with the other seven getting R68 million worth of shares each. One of those seven was Saul Saltzman, the third son, who is an executive director and actively involved in the business.
He received the shares via The Saul Saltzman Family Trust.
According to the group’s 2025 financial statements, Saul owns approximately 700 000 shares in the group, which is not even 1% of the shares in issue.
In January, Ivlyn disposed of R1.425 billion worth of shares.
Following the Ivlyn distribution, the co-founders own just 35 million shares in Dis-Chem. They remain the largest linked shareholder – just – with Stanley Goetsch holding 29.9 million shares, through his ‘Stansh’ investment vehicle.
Aside from the 5% holding by Royal Bafokeng Holdings, there are two other major shareholders – Coronation Fund Managers (16.13%) and the Government Employees Pension Fund (effectively the Public Investment Corporation) with 11.28%.