South Africa’s debt-laden power utility Eskom has achieved a milestone not seen since the early 2010s: a credit-rating upgrade from a major international agency. On Tuesday, S&P Global Ratings raised Eskom’s long-term foreign- and local-currency issuer ratings from B to B+, maintaining a stable outlook. The move marks the first upward revision in more than twelve years and reflects a combination of sustained operational improvement, stricter financial discipline, and continued government backing.
The decision follows Eskom’s announcement of a R24.3-billion pre-tax profit for the financial year ending March 2025 – its first positive bottom line in eight years – and an ongoing R254-billion debt-relief package from National Treasury. Perhaps more importantly, the utility has delivered 161 consecutive days without load shedding as of late November 2025 and has kept its energy availability factor above 70% for several consecutive months, with uninterrupted supply recorded 97.9% of the time this year. According to S&P Global Ratings, these operational gains directly address the primary concerns that drove repeated downgrades throughout the past decade.
Market reaction has been swift and broadly positive. South Africa’s benchmark 10-year government bond yield has fallen to approximately 8.6%, its lowest level since early 2022, signalling reduced perceived sovereign risk. Eskom’s own gross debt-to-EBITDA ratio improved dramatically from 11.58 to 4.90 in a single year, placing the utility on a firmer footing to service its roughly R420-billion debt book.
Economists note that reliable electricity supply carries outsized macroeconomic weight. The South African Reserve Bank has previously estimated that stage-6 load shedding can shave up to 1.5 percentage points off annual GDP growth. With power cuts largely eliminated for more than five months, several forecasters have upgraded 2025 growth projections to between 1.8% and 2.1%. As reported by Bloomberg, analysts at Nedbank and Investec now describe the absence of load shedding as “the single largest positive supply-side shock to the economy in years”.
The upgrade also brings relief to coal-dependent regions and industries. Eskom remains South Africa’s largest single purchaser of coal, accounting for roughly 45% of domestic thermal coal demand. Stabilised procurement volumes have eased pressure on major producers such as Exxaro Resources, Seriti Resources, and Thungela Resources, whose share prices have risen between 8% and 14% since the rating announcement.
Yet caution remains warranted. The B+ rating still sits deep in sub-investment-grade territory, and S&P stressed that the stable outlook hinges on the sustainability of operational gains through at least 2026. Any resurgence of unplanned breakdowns or governance lapses could reverse the fragile progress.
For ordinary households and businesses, however, the psychological and practical shift is already tangible: factories are running full shifts again, small manufacturers are rehiring, and the once-ubiquitous roar of diesel generators has fallen silent in many suburbs. As noted by Business Day, consumer confidence indices recorded their sharpest monthly jump in November 2025 since the post-Covid rebound of 2021.
Taken together, the rating action represents more than a line-item improvement on a balance sheet. It is emerging as a concrete marker that South Africa’s long battle against energy insecurity may finally be turning a corner, offering tentative but meaningful encouragement to investors, industry, and citizens alike.