South African tycoon John Copelyn gains $41.8 million from stake in HCI

South African tycoon and leading business executive John Copelyn has seen the market value of his stake in Hosken Consolidated Investments (HCI), a Cape Town-based investment holding company, rise by $41.8 million. The value bump resulted in a significant increase in his multimillion-dollar fortune after one of HCI’s operating subsidiaries announced a light oil discovery.

HCI is involved in a wide range of investments, including hotel and leisure, interactive gaming, media and broadcasting, transportation, mining, real estate and, more recently, oil and gas.

Copelyn, the CEO of HCI since 1997, owns a 6.49-percent stake in the Cape Town-based investment holding company, totaling 6,490,077 shares. His stake is now worth more than $70 million.

As of press time on May 17, shares in HCI were trading at R177.38 ($11.05) per share on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, 15 basis points lower than their market-opening price on the local bourse this morning.

Shares in the South African investment holding have increased from R74 ($4.61) on Jan. 1 to R177.38 ($11.05) at the time of writing this report, a total gain of 139.7 percent for shareholders in the past 137 days.

The price increase in HCI shares increased the market value of Copelyn’s stake by R670.9 million ($41.8 million), from R480.3 million ($29.9 million) at the start of the year to R1.15 billion ($71.7 million) at the time of writing.

According to information gathered by Billionaires.Africa, the multimillion-dollar increase in the South African businessman’s stake can be attributed to investors’ recent buying interest in HCI, which sent shares in the investment holding skyrocketing.

The increase in HCI’s share price comes after Impact Oil and Gas Limited, a UK-based oil and gas prospecting private company that operates as a 49-percent owned subsidiary of HCI, announced a light oil discovery in Block 2913B (PEL 56), one of its offshore assets in Namibia.