Top ANC Western Cape official Lincoln “James” Ngculu and Thuthukile Skweyiya, a former ambassador to France and wife of Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya, got their shareholding soon after Wesizwe’s inception in 2003, and each now holds 7,3% of its shares. Skweyiya is also Wesizwe’s chairwoman.

In 2003 Wesizwe bought the mineral rights owned by the North West-based Bakubung community, which now owns 33% of the company.

Yesterday the shares of the exploration company began trading on the JSE at R6, before falling to R4 at the close — giving the company a value of R1,4bn.

At yesterday’s share price, the value of Ngculu’s and Skweyiya’s shareholdings comes to more than R104m each.

Although Skweyiya would not disclose what she had paid for the shares initially, it is likely to have been a fraction of the ruling share price, considering new investors who bought into Wesizwe in recent years paid between R2,20 and R2,80 for their shares.

Skweyiya said that she did not intend selling her shares any time soon. “We came in before, from scratch and … (we are committed) to building the company,” she said.

Wesizwe’s listing is a major breakthrough for the JSE, being the second listing of an exploration company within a week, after the new-look Miranda began doing business this week.

This suggests the local exchange is winning the war to convince at least some exploration companies with South African assets to list locally rather than in Toronto or London.

Yesterday JSE business development manager Noah Greenhill welcomed the challenge to make the local bourse “the Toronto of Africa” for exploration companies.

Wesizwe CEO Mike Solomon said his company was “taking a different direction” by opting to list on the JSE, and that he did not believe there was a lack of appetite within SA for exploration stocks.

“Institutional (investors) are interested in exploration players, but they don’t entirely understand the value,” he said.

In the past, a number of companies with local operations have shied away from a JSE listing, including Teal Mining, which holds the foreign exploration assets of African Rainbow Minerals. It listed in Toronto last month.