Billionaire Michiel le Roux’s Capitec stake hits $3.9bn

South African billionaire Michiel le Roux’s stake in Capitec Bank Holdings Ltd. is worth about R64.5 billion ($3.9 billion) after shares of the lender he co-founded jumped 6.08% in Johannesburg on Thursday and held most of the gain on Friday.

Capitec rose to R4,911.71 on Nov. 5, up from about R4,630 the previous day, and closed at R4,897.71 on Friday, down 0.3%. Le Roux owns 13,164,393 Capitec shares, or about 11.4% of the bank, making him its second-largest shareholder after the Public Investment Corp., which manages pension money for South African government workers. The 5.8% gain over the two days added about R3.5 billion ($212 million) to the value of his holding.

At Friday’s close, Capitec has a market value of about R566 billion ($34.1 billion), making it the most valuable bank on the JSE.

Borrowing against the shares

Le Roux has used part of the stake to raise cash. In July, his investment company, Kalander Sekuriteit, refinanced a hedging and loan arrangement over 1,374,356 Capitec shares and raised about R6.5 billion. Those shares alone are now worth about R6.73 billion.

The bank’s other large individual shareholders include the family of Jannie Mouton, the PSG Group founder who backed Capitec from the start. Mouton’s son Petrus owns about 6.1% of the bank, and a Mouton family trust holds about 5.1%.

Politics and the bank

Le Roux, 77, is also South Africa’s biggest individual political donor. 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. The donations have made him a target of the ANC Youth League, which in 2023 urged South Africans to boycott Capitec. Le Roux has said the money comes from his own companies and not from the bank, and Capitec has said it does not fund any political party.

Le Roux co-founded Capitec in 2001 with Mouton and Riaan Stassen and served as its first chief executive until 2004. He chaired the board from 2007 to 2016. Before Capitec he ran Boland Bank and worked at Distillers Corp., the liquor group founded by Anton Rupert. The bank built its customer base with low fees and simple accounts and now has more clients than any other lender in South Africa.

Figures were converted at R16.6 to the dollar.