Fidelity Services Group has reiterated that it is exploring a listing on the JSE, and says chief executive Wahl Bartmann plans to expand the business beyond South Africa's borders. It’s the country's largest private security provider, with more than 71,000 employees across 300 locations.

The listing has been under consideration since November 2025, with several banks tapped to develop a plan, and Fidelity has said it will move when the economics are right rather than be rushed, with speculation pointing to late 2026.

The JSE has been shedding companies to delistings for years, so a business this size arriving would run against the trend, though the recent surge in South African M&A suggests appetite is returning. The scale itself is the product of three decades of acquisitions.

Bartmann took over Springbok Patrols in 1997, used early BEE regulations to build an accredited group, merged with Fidelity in 2006 to pair guarding with cash-in-transit, bought Bidvest Protea Coin's cash management arm in 2012 to become the largest CIT player, acquired ADT South Africa from Tyco for R2-billion in 2017 along with 365,000 clients, and added 9,000 guards through SSG Holdings last year. Private security guards now outnumber police roughly four to one.

Daily Investor reported the expansion intent and Fidelity's statement that Bartmann's children and other family members are in the business, supporting long-term succession plans. Its earlier profile reported the group tapping several banks and set the listing against the exchange's run of delistings. Fidelity's own statement last year opposed proposed PSIRA firearm regulation amendments, warning they could restrict armed guards whose employer is merely under investigation.

A listing makes sense on its own terms. It gives the family liquidity, gives the JSE a rare arrival, and puts audited numbers on an industry that has grown large enough to outnumber a police service still waiting on its body camera tender without ever having to publish much.

The harder question is the global push. Fidelity's model was built for South African conditions: armed response, cash-in-transit, and a guarding business sized to a policing gap. Those do not export cleanly to markets without the same problem. What does travel is the technology layer the group has been quietly building, the fleet tracking and monitoring, which competes on product rather than headcount.

A prospectus will also have to price regulatory risk, because the firearm amendments Fidelity publicly opposed go to the core of what an armed response business may legally do.

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