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South African billionaire Michiel le Roux's stake in Capitec Ltd. is closing in on $4 billion as the lender he co-founded nears a R600 billion market value on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
Capitec's shares closed at R4,915 on Nov. 11, within reach of R5,000, giving the bank a market value of about R570 billion. At that price, Le Roux's 13,164,393 shares are worth about R64.7 billion ($3.9 billion). The holding amounts to about 11.4% of the bank and makes him its second-largest shareholder after the state-owned Public Investment Corp.
The bank is leading a recovery in South African lenders from a sell-off in March linked to Iran. The combined market value of the country's listed banks has now risen above R2 trillion ($120.5 billion), with Capitec the most valuable of the group.
A bank built from scratch
Le Roux, 77, co-founded Capitec in 2001 with Jannie Mouton and Riaan Stassen. He served as its first chief executive officer until 2004 and later chaired the board from 2007 to 2016. Before Capitec, he ran Boland Bank and worked at Distillers Corp., the liquor company.
Capitec started as a microlender and grew into South Africa's largest retail bank by client numbers by keeping fees low and its product range simple. That approach has made it one of the best-performing stocks on the JSE over the past two decades and turned its founders into some of the country's richest people.
Other early backers also hold large positions. Petrus Mouton, son of Jannie Mouton, holds about 6.1% of the bank, and a Mouton family trust owns about 5.1%.
Borrowing against the stake
Le Roux has used part of his holding to raise cash. In July, his investment company, Kalander Sekuriteit, refinanced a hedging and loan arrangement over 1,374,356 Capitec shares, raising about R6.5 billion. At the Nov. 11 close, those shares are worth about R6.75 billion ($407 million).
He is also one of the largest private funders of South African politics. His companies, Fynbos Ekwiteit and Fynbos Kapitaal, gave the Democratic Alliance R78 million ($4.7 million) in the first half of 2026, nearly half of what the party declared for the period.
Figures were converted at R16.6 to the dollar.
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