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Zak Calisto, a South African tech mogul and leading businessman, has seen the market value of his stake fall by more than $285 million since the start of the year, as the global equity sell-off weighs on the valuation of his flagship company, Karooooo Limited.
Karooooo is a global mobility SaaS platform that maximizes the value of automotive and workflow data by delivering real-time data analytics solutions for smart transportation to more than 1.3 million connected vehicles.
Calisto, who founded Karooooo in 2001 with the primary goal of providing stolen car recovery services in South Africa, owns a 75-percent stake in the Singapore-based technology firm.
Karooooo shares were worth $28.5 per share on the Nasdaq Stock Market as of press time on March 26, giving the leading global mobility company an $867.25-million capitalization.
Shares in the company have fallen from a high of $40.78 on Jan. 1 to $28.5 at the time of writing this report, representing a 30.1-percent loss for shareholders over the past 85 days.
As a result of the double-digit slump in Karooooo’s shares, the market value of Calisto’s stake has declined by $285.02 million from $946.5 million at the beginning of this year to $661.49 million.
The drop in the company’s valuation and the market value of Calisto’s shares can be attributed to a recent sell-off of Karooooo’s shares, as investors cycle out funds in the company in response to figures in its nine-month earnings report.
Profit for the Singapore-based firm fell by 3.9 percent in the first nine months of its 2022 fiscal year, from R394.9 million ($25.96 million) to R379.4 million ($24.9 million) when compared to the same period last year.
Earnings were impacted by an increase in operating expenses and other additional charges, which included IPO costs that had been fully accounted for by the end of Q1 2022, resulting in a single-digit decline in earnings.
