Leaving its scandal-ridden past well behind it, Lesaka Technologies has again delivered on its guidance for the latest quarter.
The group, worth about R7.5bn on the JSE, has recorded growth in its two main business, while adding to its operations with a series of acquisitions.
Group chair Ali Mazanderani said he was happy with Lesaka’s performance and confident of its ability to keep delivering in the coming quarters and full-year.
“I am pleased that we exceeded our group adjusted ebitda [earnings before tax, interest, depreciation and amortisation] guidance for the quarter and can reaffirm our FY2025 guidance. We have now delivered on our profitability guidance for 10 successive quarters,” he said.
The JSE- and Nasdaq-listed company, formerly Net1 UEPS Technologies, reported revenue of R2.6bn for the second quarter to end-December — at the upper end of its revenue guidance − and compared with R2.7bn a year ago.
The group, however, reported operating income of R14.2m for the period, much lower than the R42.5m a year earlier.
Group adjusted ebitda rose 26% to R211.8m.
The fintech group has done much work to reposition itself beyond processing social grants and has bet a big part of its growth on SA’s informal sector.
Its two main divisions focus on merchants and consumers, with the latter providing products such as unsecured credit, transactional banking, microinsurance and value added services through its EasyPay platform in the formal sector.
The merchant business, the bigger of the two in terms of earnings, saw its revenue decrease 5% in local currency to R2.1bn, while net revenue increased 68% to R854.4m.
Revenue for the consumer division, now with 1.8-million customers, increased 31% in local currency to R410.7m, with segment adjusted ebitda up 61% to R77.5m.
Lesaka has set its guidance for group adjusted ebitda at R1.25bn-R1.45bn for its 2026 financial year.
Mazanderani said this “demonstrates our continued confidence in the Lesaka platform’s scalability”.
For this year, it expects to report revenue of R10bn-R11bn, while group adjusted ebitda is forecast at R900m-R1bn.
The company, which was founded in 1997, rebranded in 2022 to a word that means “kraal” in Setswana and Sesotho. A kraal is where livestock, often seen as a symbol of security, community and wealth, are kept in the centre of the community.
The group has been busy on the mergers & acquisitions front. In October it bought local fintech operator Adumo for R1.6bn through a combination of stock and cash.
It also acquired Touchsides from Heineken SA for an undisclosed sum in February 2024.
In its latest deal in October, it agreed to buy prepaid electricity metering and payments business Recharger for R507m.
Recharger has a base of more than 460,000 registered prepaid electricity meters.
Lesaka’s share price, up 44% over the past 12 months, was 3.29% higher at R94 by market close on Thursday.
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