If a share has disappeared from your portfolio and a "sale" you never made has turned up on your statement or your investment tax certificate, this page explains that entry. It almost always follows a delisting - the company's shares have been removed from the JSE and can no longer be bought, sold or priced. Nothing was sold on a market, no money changed hands, and you didn't authorise anything. Here's what actually happened, and what it does and doesn't mean for you.
NOTE: This covers delistings where there's no payout to shareholders - typically a liquidation, a winding-up, or a company falling out of compliance with the JSE's Listings Requirements. If your company was bought out, merged, or offered you cash or replacement shares, that's a corporate action and works differently. See the last section on this page.
On this page:
What Happened to Your Shares
A delisting means the company's shares have been removed from the JSE and can no longer be bought, sold or priced on the exchange. This usually follows a winding-up or liquidation order, or the company failing to meet the JSE's Listings Requirements. Because there's no longer a market price for the share, there's no way for us to keep holding or valuing it on the platform, which is why it comes out of your portfolio.
Related: Is a suspended share the same as a delisted one? · Do I still own the shares now that they're gone from my portfolio? · Corporate Actions Explained
No, and the difference matters. A suspended share is still listed - trading is paused, but the share stays in your portfolio and continues to reflect at its last traded price. A delisting is permanent removal from the exchange, and only then do we remove the holding from your portfolio. If your share is suspended, nothing has been taken off your account and nothing will appear on your tax certificate for it.
Related: My share was delisted. What does that actually mean? · Why does my statement show a sale I never made? · Suspended Shares
The Entry on Your Statement and Tax Certificate
That entry isn't a trade, and it isn't something you authorised or we chose to do. It's an internal accounting entry used to remove an untradeable holding from the platform after a delisting, and it appears on both your monthly investment statement and your investment tax certificate because that's how our reporting records a holding leaving your account. No shares were sold on any market.
Related: Why is it shown at the price I paid instead of a market price? · Where did the money from this sale go? · Statements & Transaction History
Once a share is delisted there's no market price left to use - nothing is trading, so nothing can be priced. The adjustment is recorded at your original book cost instead, which is simply what you paid for the shares. It's the only verifiable figure still available, and it isn't an assessment of what the shares are worth.
Related: Why does it show no profit or loss? · Why does my statement show a sale I never made?
There were no proceeds, so nothing was paid into your wallet or your bank account. That's because nothing was sold - the entry exists only to move the holding off your account for reporting purposes. It's a hard thing to be told, but we'd rather be straight with you about it than soften it into something unclear.
Related: Why does it show no profit or loss? · Do I still own the shares now that they're gone from my portfolio?
Because the removal is recorded at the same price you paid, the two figures cancel each other out and the profit or loss reflects as nil. That's a reporting convention rather than a comment on how your investment actually performed, and it isn't evidence that a disposal took place. It doesn't mean you broke even - it means there's no market price left to measure against.
Related: Why is it shown at the price I paid instead of a market price? · Can you confirm this as a realised capital loss?
Tax and Written Confirmation
What we can give you is a factual confirmation of what happened: that the share was delisted, that the holding was removed at your original book cost, and that you received no proceeds. What we can't do is describe it as a realised capital loss, because no genuine disposal has taken place - nothing was sold and no money changed hands.
Related: I need something in writing for SARS. What can you send me? · How should I treat this on my tax return? · Capital Gains Tax and your investment
This is one we have to leave with your tax practitioner. Whether a removal like this counts as a realised event falls under the Income Tax Act and SARS's guidance, and it depends on your full tax picture rather than only on what happened on the platform. What we can do is give you the factual record of the removal, so your practitioner has something firm to work from.
Related: Can you confirm this as a realised capital loss? · Why does it show no profit or loss? · Capital Gains Tax and your investment
If you need formal written confirmation - to support a SARS objection or query, for example - we can arrange one. Submit a ticket and let us know which share it relates to, which tax year, and what the confirmation is being used for, so it covers the right ground. For general questions, everything on this page should be enough on its own.
Related: Can you confirm this as a realised capital loss? · Why does my statement show a sale I never made? · How do I get my tax certificate?
If This Isn't Quite Your Situation
This page covers one specific case: a delisting with no payout to shareholders, where the holding is removed from your portfolio at book cost. It doesn't cover a delisting where the company offers you cash, shares in another company, or the option to stay invested in an unlisted entity - those are corporate actions and are handled quite differently, so start with Corporate Actions Explained. If your share is suspended but still listed, nothing has been removed from your account and Suspended Shares is the page you want. And for how to access your statement or tax certificate generally, see Statements & Transaction History.