South African billionaire Zak Calisto's stake in Karooooo crosses $1 billion again after record quarter

Zak Calisto, the founder and chief executive of vehicle-tracking group Karooooo, has crossed back over the dollar-billionaire line, with his direct stake worth about $1.05 billion after the company reported record subscriber growth on Wednesday.

Karooooo carried a market capitalisation of $1.81 billion on July 16, the day it published unaudited results for its first quarter, placing the value of Calisto's 58% direct holding above $1 billion once more. He is one of only about ten dollar billionaires in South Africa, alongside names including Johann Rupert, Nicky Oppenheimer and Patrice Motsepe, and more recent entrants such as Dis-Chem's Ivan Saltzman.

The milestone is a round trip. Calisto first crossed the threshold in May 2025, when Karooooo's rising share price lifted his then 65% stake above $1 billion. He fell back below it in June, when he sold 1.5 million shares for about R1.3 billion in a secondary offering that reduced his direct holding to 58%. The company's climb since has carried the smaller stake back over the mark.

The results underneath the wealth number were strong. Karooooo, which owns all of Cartrack and 81% of Karooooo Logistics, said subscription revenue rose 19% to a record R1.35 billion ($84 million) in the three months to May 31. Operating profit increased 16% to a record R410 million, and adjusted earnings per share rose 11% to R9.53.

The growth engine was subscriber acquisition. Cartrack's subscriber base accelerated 18% to 2,804,694, and net additions jumped 70% to a record 142,472 in the quarter, the clearest sign that the company's heavy investment in sales capacity during the prior year is now converting into customers. Cartrack's annualised recurring revenue, a closely watched measure of the subscription base, rose 19% to R5.43 billion ($335 million).

A strengthening rand masked faster underlying growth. Karooooo reports in rand but earns across more than 20 countries, and the currency's appreciation reduced the reported contribution from many of those markets. Measured in constant currency, Cartrack's subscription revenue grew 21% and its recurring revenue rose 22%. Presented in dollars, recurring revenue climbed 32%.

"FY2027 has commenced with strong, accelerated growth," Calisto said in the results, pointing to the record subscriber additions and the constant-currency revenue growth. He said the company would grow sales and marketing at a moderate pace this year while extracting more from the investments made in the prior period.

Karooooo Logistics, the group's business-to-business delivery arm, grew its delivery-as-a-service revenue 46% to R177 million, and lifted operating profit 50% to R15 million, though the unit remains small against Cartrack.

The company held its full-year guidance unchanged. It expects Cartrack subscription revenue of between R5.7 billion and R6 billion, implying growth of 18% to 24%, a gross profit margin of 70% to 72%, and earnings per share of between R38.50 and R40.00. The midpoint of that range implies EPS growth of 21% over the prior year, excluding the costs of the secondary offering.

Cash generation, the metric Calisto has long emphasised, held up. Cash generated from operations before working capital changes rose 21% to R690 million. Free cash flow, a non-statutory measure, fell to R60 million from R338 million a year earlier, a drop the company attributed to a deliberate 62% increase in spending on in-vehicle tracking devices and inventory to support the surge in new subscribers. The group held net cash of R755 million at the end of May, kept mostly in US dollars, alongside undrawn overdraft facilities of R750 million with Capitec and Standard Bank.

The company will pay an interim dividend of $1.50 a share on July 20 to shareholders on its Johannesburg register, and on July 27 to those on the Nasdaq.

The path from stolen-vehicle recovery to a $1.8 billion company took a quarter of a century. Calisto founded the business in 2001 in South Africa, building it around recovering hijacked cars in one of the world's most carjacking-prone markets, then expanded it into fleet telematics and a broader operational intelligence platform now used by more than 125,000 commercial customers. The company listed on the Nasdaq in April 2021 under the Karooooo name and took a secondary listing in Johannesburg, delisting the original Cartrack shares from the JSE.

Calisto has kept tight control throughout. Beyond his 58% direct stake, he has at times held additional voting rights through standing agreements, and he serves as both chief executive and executive chairman, an unusually concentrated grip for a company of its size. That concentration is why the group's share-price moves translate so directly into his personal wealth, and why a single strong quarter can carry him back across the billion-dollar line.

The company framed the quarter as the start of a longer acceleration, with management arguing that investments in artificial intelligence, video products and its Cartrack-Tag device position it for durable growth. Whether the share price holds at a level that keeps Calisto above $1 billion will depend on the market, but the operating trajectory he described on Wednesday was one of a business speeding up rather than slowing down.