Capitec is now the most valuable bank in Africa
Capitec Bank Holdings overtook FirstRand to become Africa’s most valuable bank, a month after it appointed a new chief executive officer.
South Africa’s biggest bank by customer numbers, Capitec has reported record profits for four straight years.
Its shares have jumped about 16% since the start of the year, outstripping peers on the FTSE/JSE Africa Bank Index, which climbed 3.6% over the period. FirstRand is down 1.3%.
Capitec’s stock has surged 213,189% since its listing on 18 February, 2002. Under former CEO Gerrie Fourie, the bank’s focus on low-income depositors and unsecured lending helped lure customers. Graham Lee replaced Fourie on 19 July.
“Capitec’s growth shows what a company can do by solving a real customer problem, with a decisive management team and agile technology,” Avior Capital Markets analyst Adrienne Damant said in response to questions from Bloomberg.
It has created a trusted brand and leveraged its large client base to consistently deliver better earnings growth and returns than its peers, she said.
Still, Capitec is facing intensifying competition as rivals including Nedbank Group Ltd. and new lender OM Bank seek to tap the low-income market.
| Bank | Total Assets |
|---|---|
| Standard Bank | R3.4 trillion |
| FirstRand | R2.5 trillion |
| Absa Group | R2.2 trillion |
| Nedbank | R1.5 trillion |
| Capitec | R239 billion |
Capitec was founded by Michiel le Roux in 1997, three years after Nelson Mandela led the African National Congress to victory in the nation’s first post-apartheid elections.
The lender was spun off from financial services company PSG Group Ltd. in March 2001 and listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange 11 months later.
Since then, the company has transformed itself into a financial-services company with more than 24.1 million personal and business clients as of the end of February.
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