On the West Coast a week’s wages still have to stretch across diesel, school shoes and the grocery till. That is why a figure like R2.5 million a week stops people mid-scroll. It is also why the next number needs a clean explanation. Jens Montanana, founder and chief executive of JSE-listed Datatec, is in line for about R1.3 billion from one special dividend. That is not a salary bonus in the ordinary sense. It is what a large shareholding pays when a company sends cash back to owners.
Datatec confirmed the special cash dividend after completing, on 4 August 2026, the refinancing of its Westcon International business with funds managed by General Atlantic. The group will return about R7.05 billion to shareholders at R29 a share. Payment is due on 16 October 2026. Shareholders who are not exempt will pay 20% dividend withholding tax, leaving a net R23.20 a share. The company said it will absorb deal costs so more of the cash reaches the register.
Montanana is Datatec’s largest individual shareholder. At the February 2026 year-end he held about 44.9 million shares, or roughly 19% of the company, just behind the Public Investment Corporation. At R29 a share, that stake produces about R1.30 billion before tax. That is the “one deal” figure. The deal itself was a recapitalisation of Westcon: a new six-year senior facility, a small equity slice for General Atlantic, and repayment of an old internal shareholder loan. Datatec keeps control. Westcon gets a standalone capital structure and a global minority partner.
The weekly number in the headlines is a different layer. Montanana’s cash pay as CEO — salary, benefits and short-term incentives — has previously been reported in the tens of millions of rand a year, which works out at well over a million rand a week before you add ordinary dividends. The R1.3 billion is not that weekly packet. It is owner money released after a refinancing. Mixing the two makes the story louder than it is. Keeping them apart makes it truer.
The operating backdrop is strong. For the year to 28 February 2026 Datatec called it one of the best in the group’s history. Gross invoiced income rose to about $8.46 billion. Headline earnings per share jumped 56.5%. Profit after tax rose to $108.7 million. Westcon, the distribution engine, did most of the heavy lifting. Cybersecurity now accounts for more than half of Westcon’s category sales. AI infrastructure demand is the other engine. Almost all of Datatec’s revenue is earned outside South Africa. The listing, and a large slice of the register, remain here.
That last point is the local hook. The PIC’s holding means public servants and pensioners sit on the same dividend as the founder. A Saldanha contractor upgrading a network, a Vredenburg school buying security software, a Langebaan business paying for cloud kit — those invoices often run through the same global channel Datatec feeds. When a Johannesburg-listed group refinances a worldwide distributor and sends R7 billion down the share register, the money does not all stay in Sandton.
Montanana did not invent this payday last week. He built Datatec over thirty years, kept a large slice of the shares, and now collects the same special dividend as every other shareholder — only on a much bigger holding. That is ownership, not a thank-you cheque from the board. The weekly CEO pay is his job. The R1.3 billion is his stake. Those two things should stay in separate columns.
