Absa has listed a further 19,835 Actively Managed Certificates (AMCs) under its ABAM1 series on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, according to a Stock Exchange News Service (SENS) notice published via Moneyweb. The new certificates were priced at approximately R131.05 each and took effect from 21 August 2026, taking the total number of ABAM1 certificates in issue to 1,336,143.
An Actively Managed Certificate is a listed security that gives investors exposure to a portfolio a fund manager actively adjusts, rather than a fixed index. Unlike a unit trust, an AMC trades on the exchange during normal market hours, so investors can buy or sell it the same way they would an ordinary share.
ABAM1 is Absa’s own actively managed equity certificate, sponsored by Absa Corporate and Investment Bank, a division of Absa Bank Limited. The additional listing does not launch a new product. It expands the size of an AMC that is already trading, which increases the number of certificates available to buy without changing the certificate’s investment strategy or mandate.
For an investor, more certificates in issue generally means more liquidity: a larger pool of listed certificates is typically easier to buy or sell at a fair price without the trade itself moving that price. It does not change what the certificate invests in or how much risk it carries, both of which are set by ABAM1’s existing investment mandate rather than by the notice announcing this listing.
Notices like this one are routine for large South African banks and asset managers, which regularly list additional units of an existing exchange-traded product to meet investor demand. The JSE requires each listing, however small relative to the exchange as a whole, to be disclosed through SENS before it takes effect. The new certificates will be cleared and settled through Strate, South Africa’s central securities depository, in the same way as other JSE-listed instruments.
Absa did not disclose the total value of the new listing in its notice. Based on the disclosed price and number of certificates, the additional listing is worth in the region of R2.6m, a small fraction of the roughly R175m the full ABAM1 series now represents at that same price.
For an investor weighing up ABAM1 or a similar certificate, the listing notice itself is not the document that matters most. It confirms that more certificates exist and at what price, but it says nothing about performance, fees or the manager’s specific holdings. That detail sits in the certificate’s own fact sheet and prospectus, which is where the real comparison against a unit trust or an index-tracking exchange-traded fund needs to happen before any money moves.
Certificates like ABAM1 are one part of a broader shift by South African banks toward listing actively managed products directly on the JSE rather than distributing them only through unit trust structures. The appeal for the bank is a product investors can trade the same way they trade shares; the trade-off for the investor is that liquidity depends on enough certificates being in issue and enough buyers and sellers active in the market, which is part of what today’s expanded listing is meant to support.
