Brait PLC reported a net asset value (NAV) of R2.64 a share at 30 September 2026, in line with March 2026 and up 2% on September 2025 once the effect of its rights offer is stripped out, according to the company’s interim results published on the JSE’s SENS service on 11 November. The same announcement says Virgin Active, which makes up 51% of Brait’s total assets, has signed a binding agreement to buy the German premium gym operator Holmes Place Germany for €135 million.
The earnings figure fell even though the asset value held
Brait is an investment holding company, so NAV is the number that matters most. The results say NAV per share was unchanged against March 2026 and 2% higher than a year earlier on a comparable basis. Earnings tell a weaker story. Brait reported IFRS earnings and headline earnings of 4 cents a share for the six months, against 21 cents in the comparable period it labels HY26.
A separate notice to bondholders published the same day discloses a restatement. Brait says an error in applying the accounting standard IAS 21 in HY2026 distorted the split between the investment valuation gain and foreign exchange translation adjustments. It says the restatement had no impact on reported NAV or total equity in the current or prior years.
The rights offer repaid the convertible bonds and funded the Virgin Active raise
Brait says it completed an oversubscribed, fully underwritten rights offer in August 2026 that raised R2.5 billion. The money went to two uses. It repaid the convertible bonds due December 2027 on 15 September 2026, which Brait says saves R270 million in coupons, and it paid for Brait’s part of a capital raise at Virgin Active.
Brait put R2.4 billion into that Virgin Active raise, which concluded in October. Available cash and facilities were R3.5 billion at the reporting date and R1.1 billion after the contribution, the company says.
Virgin Active is buying 13 clubs in Germany
Virgin Active completed a £175 million rights issue in early October, which Brait says will cut its debt by £243 million, including the conversion of its convertible preference shares into ordinary shares. Net debt to EBITDA stood at 2.4 times at September and rises to 2.9 times once the German deal completes, the results say.
Holmes Place Germany has 13 large format clubs across six cities and 84,100 members. Brait says it is forecast to earn revenue of €70.2 million and EBITDA of €21.5 million in the year to December 2026. The €135 million price is 6.3 times that EBITDA, and Virgin Active will pay from existing cash. Completion is expected by mid December 2026. On a pro forma basis the German business would add about 14% of Virgin Active’s 2026 EBITDA, with international operations at 56% and South Africa at 44%.
At home, the picture is mixed. Virgin Active’s Southern African revenue rose 5% over the last twelve months and it had 605,000 active members, but Brait says attrition stayed high, partly because clubs closed for refurbishment and members face affordability pressure. Group EBITDA over the last twelve months was £116.7 million, up 10%, and Brait kept its valuation multiple at 9.0 times. Its carrying value for Virgin Active is R9,173 million, down from R9,393 million at FY26.
Premier and New Look carry the rest of the portfolio
Premier, which with a structured equity instrument is 31% of Brait’s total assets, has already reported, as we covered in Premier’s half year headline earnings of 711 cents. Brait says it holds an unchanged 19.0%, or 31.3 million shares. Our earlier report on Premier’s cannery closure gives background on Premier’s restructuring.
New Look, the UK value fashion retailer, is 4% of assets. Brait says maintainable EBITDA rose 32% to £39.5 million, net debt fell to £13.6 million, or 0.3 times EBITDA, and a refinancing gives it runway to 2029. Its carrying value is R806 million, up from R723 million.
What this means for business
Our reading: the results show a holding company that has used shareholder money to remove a bond maturity and strengthen its largest asset, rather than to widen its book. For listed investors, the figure to watch is liquidity. Brait’s R1.1 billion cushion is about a third of what it had at the reporting date, and the German deal is paid for inside Virgin Active, not by Brait directly.
What is still unknown
Brait’s summary says Virgin Active’s EBITDA grew 3% in the period and 10% over the last twelve months, and does not reconcile the two measures. It does not say when Brait plans to return capital to shareholders, only that its strategy is to realise value and return capital. The effect of the IAS 21 error on the earnings line, and how the 21 cent comparative was restated, sit in the full financial statements on the company’s results page. The German deal is also still subject to customary completion adjustments.
