iOCO’s Secret Share Buyback Shocks South Africa With Shocking Multi-Million Rand Move

SHOCKING TWIST or CYNICAL PLOY? The IT firm born from the ashes of the SCANDAL-RIDDEN EOH empire is now funneling MILLIONS into a secretive stock scheme while investors sleepwalk into a potential trap. In a brazen move, iOCO has stealthily repurchased MILLIONS of its own shares, burning through R9.38 million of cash in a desperate bid to ARTIFICIALLY inflate its value and hide the ROTTEN core of its past.

This is not a success story—it’s a DECEPTIVE REBRAND. Behind the glossy “digital services” facade lies a company desperate to erase a legacy of GOVERNANCE FAILURES and a jaw-dropping R1.2 BILLION in suspicious public sector transactions. NOW, they’re using shareholder money to buy back stock, a classic Wall Street trick to paint over the cracks and signal false confidence. But the truth is BLEAK: this “profitable turnaround” was built on selling off EIGHT legacy companies at a NET LOSS, a scorched-earth policy that sacrificed long-term stability for a fleeting profit spike.

Co-CEO Rhys Summerton calls this a “turning point,” but insiders are asking: A TURN TOWARD WHAT? This frantic share grab, conducted in the shadows of the JSE, reeks of a leadership UNABLE to attract real investment, choosing instead to MANIPULATE earnings per share and seduce the market with smoke and mirrors. While they boast of “sufficient liquidity,” they’ve declared NO DIVIDENDS for ordinary shareholders—proving this is a game for the boardroom, NOT for the people who trusted them.

This is corporate alchemy at its most DANGEROUS, and every investor cheering this “recovery” is being played for a fool. The question is no longer if iOCO has changed, but how long until its carefully constructed house of cards comes crashing down AGAIN.