South African businessman Zak Calisto to receive $11.68-million in dividends from Karooooo

Mfonobong Nsehe -

Zak Calisto, a South African businessman and the founder of Karooooo Limited, is set to receive a dividend of $11.68 million as a result of his majority stake in Karooooo, a Singapore-based mobility platform.

This comes after the board announced plans to pay a $17.7-million dividend to shareholders after posting a profit of R476.61 million ($29.7 million) at the end of its 2022 fiscal year, which represents its first full reporting period since its debut on Nasdaq on March 31, 2021, in an IPO that raised gross proceeds of $29.4 million from 1,050,000 ordinary shares at a price of $28 per share.

Calisto, who founded Karooooo in 2001, initially focusing on stolen car recovery services in South Africa, owns a 66-percent stake in the company, which operates Cartrack, a wholly-owned subsidiary that provides real-time mobility data analytics solutions for smart transportation.

The Singapore-based mobility platform has recently evolved into a major international provider of smart transportation management and analytics, serving customers in 23 countries across five continents and supporting more than 1.4 million users worldwide.

The $11.68-million dividend, which will be paid electronically into Calisto’s bank account on September 12, will be paid from the company’s retained earnings of R1.28 billion ($79.1 million) at the end of its fiscal period in 2022.

Karooooo reported impressive growth across all operating segments in its 2022 annual report, adding a total of 219,972 subscribers to its customer base, up 23 percent from the previous year’s 179,485 subscribers.

Despite a 20-percent increase in revenue, the group’s profit dropped by four percent from R497.42 million ($31.12 million) in 2021 to R476.61 million ($29.8 million) at the end of its fiscal year in 2022.

Aside from an increase in recurring expenses, the profit decrease was caused by non-recurring operational expenses relating to IPO costs of R36 million ($2.25 million) expensed, as well as a one-time write-off of capitalized commission assets of nearly $1 million.