South Africa’s biggest banks experienced a mixed year when it comes to valuations, with Capitec and Nedbank returning the most to investors, while Investec saw a decline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looking exclusively at share price growth since 9 January 2024, Capitec<\/strong> has seen its share price jump by 58.55%<\/strong> over the last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The group has performed well financially, with its headline earnings and headline earnings per share up 36% to R6.4 billion and 5,544 cents per share, respectively, in the 6 months ended 31 August 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Established in 2001, Capitec has become South Africa\u2019s largest bank by customer numbers, with over 23 million active customers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n From 2004 to 2024, the group’s share price grew by almost 35,000%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The group has expanded from its unsecured lending service to a fully-fledged financial services provider, offering personal and business banking and its own under-written insurance service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The only recent spanner in the works for the group was a R56 million fine by the Prudential Authority due to Capitec’s non-compliance with certain provisions of the Finance Intelligence Centre Act (FICA), but this has little-to-no effect on the group’s share price. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The bank with the second-best returns over the last year has been Nedbank<\/strong>, which saw its share price rise by 32.42%<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The group’s most recent results for the first half of 2024 showed that headline earnings increased by 8% to R7.9 billion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The growth comes despite newly-appointed Nedbank CEO Jason Quinn warning that the operating environment was especially challenging and was characterised by high interest rates, persistent inflation, and fears surrounding South Africa’s May 29 elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nedbank was armed with a war chest of R12 billion in excess capital sitting on its books by the end of June. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The group plans to reduce its dependence on South Africa and nearly quadruple its profit from other African markets over the next decade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n South Africa\u2019s fourth-largest lender by assets plans to build scale in booming sectors such as natural resources and renewable energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The third-best performing bank has been Absa<\/strong>, with its share price rising by 23.08%<\/strong> over the last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This comes despite a 5% drop in the group’s headline earnings per share in the first half of 2024 to 1,228.4 cents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Amid the poor performance CEO Arrie Rautenbach was let go by the group, while Charles Russon will become Interim CEO. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Russon recently announced that the bank will reduce its number of units to four from the current five in a bid to unlock growth. This led to a substantial rise in the group’s share price. <\/p>\n\n\n\n