The table for the 20 largest listed companies in South Africa (South Africa) includes businesses across the region, including seven from Malawi, four from Namibia, four from Zimbabwe, three from Mauritius and one from Botswana and Zambia. For a separate list of South African companies, click here.
A major change here over the past year is that Malawi and Zimbabwe have taken three and two positions, respectively.
In particular, the four Malawian banks ranked between the 10th and 14th last year are currently listed from fourth to eighth. FMB Capital Holdings is currently Malawia's largest bank, rising from 13th to 4th place after a significant increase in market capitalization from $539 million to $1,963 million. It overtook the Malawi National Bank (NBM), despite the bank's rise from $646 million to $1,669 million.
NBM announced that annual loans increased by 42% through June 2024, customer deposits increased by 30%, and after-tax profits increased to 4.1 billion Kwacha ($2.4 million). It is growing across retail, business, investment banking and asset management sectors, but one downside was the loss of K2.6 billion ($1.49 million) from Akiba Commercial Bank, a Tanzania-based subsidiary. In September, it signed a $100 million trade agreement with Afreximbank, the largest trade financial contract in Malawi to date, to support trade transactions by Malawi companies.
Malawi's First Discount House (FDH) bank was not even included in the top 20 regions in Southern Africa last year, but rose from 243rd to 98th in the Continental Top 250 as its value rose drastically from $259 million to $1254 million. Last year, we also secured support from Afreximbank. This was in the form of a $15 million amortization term loan facility to support domestic traders and manufacturers.
FDH has increased its after-tax profits to 35.5 billion K ($203 million) for the year ending June 2024, despite heavy investments in training its various digital platforms and staff. These levels of growth must be maintained in order for Malawia's banking sector to maintain its position at the South African table in the region next year.
The largest company in the region is B2Gold Corporation in Namibia. This has benefited from the international gold prices rise over the past year. Its market value has increased from $3,485 million to $3,750 million over the past year, but this is still down in 2020 figures of $4,856 million.
Aside from the rise of Malawian banks, the most notable development in the regional table this year was the $514 million required for Mauritius IBL Ltd to secure a final position in the rankings, rising from the $369 million recorded by the National Commercial Bank of Zambia at the same location last year, never achieving the final six companies' results last year.
Click here to view the full list of Africa's top 250 companies 2025.
