The South African billionaire who founded a bank at 51

Michiel le Roux is one of South Africa’s richest people, thanks to his stake in Capitec, which he founded at 51.

With a net worth of $3.6 billion according to Forbes, Le Roux is one of the richest men in South Africa. He currently owns 11% of Capitec, which has a market cap of R537.5 billion.

However, Le Roux’s transition to banking did not occur until the 1990s, after initially intending to become a lawyer.

He was born in May 1949 and grew up in several towns due to his father’s work as a mine ventilation engineer, which required frequent relocation. 

He attended Hoërskool Alberton, where he matriculated in 1966. He then enrolled at Stellenbosch University, where he earned a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Laws.

Le Roux told 702 that he was not interested in the day-to-day life as a lawyer, calling it boring. He opted for the liquor industry and began working at Anton Rupert’s Distillers Corporation.

He worked his way up to managing director of the company, which, by 1979, had become the leading wine and spirits producer in the country. He then transitioned into the banking industry by joining Boland Bank, a small regional bank in the Cape.

In 1994, he moved into banking by joining Boland Bank, a small regional bank near Cape Town, where he was brought on by South African billionaire Christo Wiese.

While South Africa is often praised for its highly stable and advanced banking systems, Le Roux believes that banking was very archaic when he started.

This was primarily because banks closed at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, which became a central focus for Capitec’s mission to meet customers where they were.

He resigned from his role at Boland Bank over disagreements with the bank’s direction, which led to a multi-million-dollar, year-long lawsuit between the parties. Following several mergers, Boland was absorbed into Nedbank.

Founding Capitec

After leaving Boland, Le Roux was unemployed for a short time and was drifting, looking for new work.

He was invited by the PSG Founders, Jannie Mouton and Chris Otto, to visit some cash stores in which they invested, which Le Roux thought was a terrible idea.

However, he attended a conference and found the people there more interesting than he had thought, and agreed to visit all the branches.

After visiting the branches, he realised that many micro-loan clients were simply clients of lenders because they couldn’t get service from banks.

This idea led to the formation of Capitec, which aimed to open banking services to customers who were previously overlooked. In March 2001, when Le Roux was 51, Capitec was founded.

Le Roux then used his connections to bring people from the liquor industry into Capitec, with many coming from Distillers Corporation and Stellenbosch Farmers’ Winery.

He was the initial CEO, serving from 2001 to 2004. He admitted that Riaan Stassen, who served as CEO from 2004 to 2013, modernised and scaled the bank tremendously, enabling it to benefit from zero legacy systems.

The bank’s success since its launch was a surprise to Le Roux, who initially told shareholders that the bank would be either a “big success or a small failure.”

“But not in my wildest dreams did I think that the success would be as big as it actually turned out to be,” he admitted.

This monumental growth has been reflected in the group’s most recent results, with its headline earnings increasing by 23% to R16.8 billion.

“That is several years of compounding momentum – a trajectory very few can match. We are not a growth story that has peaked. We are still building,” the group said in its results.

Le Roux still serves on the bank’s board, having previously served as the group’s chairman from 2007 to 2016. 

He remains one of the largest political donors in South Africa, having paid millions to the DA and the defunct Change Starts Now.

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Photos of Capitec

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