Brothers behind WeBuyCars built the JSE’s fastest-growing business

WeBuyCars has shown the most organic business growth of any South African business on the JSE from 2019 to 2025, outpacing giants such as Shoprite, Boxer, and even Johann Rupert’s Richemont. 

While it is coming off a lower base than these companies, enabling it to grow at a higher rate on a sustained basis, it is heavily reliant on sales in a stagnant South African economy and in a high-stigma market. 

Growing a physical business, such as buying and selling second-hand cars, by 30% on an annual basis is extremely difficult in an economy that only grew by just over 5% per annum in nominal terms over the same period. 

Coronation’s head of South African equity research, Nicholas Hops, revealed this as part of an explanation of how the asset manager discovers and invests in high-quality companies. 

Hops explained that Coronation unlocks value by owning exceptional businesses early and holding them for a long period of time to enable compounding to drive long-term returns. 

This is based on an analysis of the fundamentals of businesses, their management teams, and the current value of the company. 

The aim of this process is to own companies with deep moats, strong management teams, and the ability to compound over the long run. 

One of the key metrics Coronation looks at is organic revenue growth, as a company that cannot grow its revenue will eventually be unable to generate returns for shareholders. 

Organic revenue growth highlights the true opportunity set ahead of a business, with Hops saying it typically needs to be teased out from reported financials. 

This also typically indicates a sustainable moat for a company, with it able to grow revenue without acquiring new businesses and simply by operating consistently. 

“While some investors tend to focus on earnings growth, we believe that, in the absence of strong topline growth, this is typically lower quality or of a shorter duration than long-term above-average revenue growth,” Hops said.

In South Africa, the stagnant economy provides another filter for investors, with companies that are unable to grow above nominal GDP being likely to experience significant margin pressure. 

South Africa’s nominal GDP, which includes inflation, has hovered around 5% per annum since 2019. 

WeBuyCars is the best-performing South African company since 2019 according to this metric, with it experiencing close to 30% organic revenue growth over the period. 

This is some way ahead of second-place Boxer, which had organic revenue growth of just over 15% from 2019 to 2025. 

The estimated organic revenue growth for South African businesses from 2019 to 2025 can be seen in the graph below, courtesy of Hops and Coronation. 

The brothers behind WeBuyCars

WeBuyCars has humble beginnings, with brothers Faan and Dirk van der Walt kicking it off by repairing their family’s old cars in their backyard. 

Growing up in Bronkhorstspruit, Adriaan Stephanus Scheepers (“Faan”) and Dirk Jacobus Floris (“Dirk”) van der Walt were taught by their father, Koos, how to repair cars. 

From an early age, Faan and Dirk would spend much of their free time under the hoods of cars. With the family struggling financially, the brothers had a burning desire to improve their livelihood. 

Faan would search through junk mail and newspaper advertisements about cars for sale and dreamed of buying them to repair any issues and sell them on for higher prices. 

However, it was only after the brothers completed their studies at the University of Pretoria, with Faan studying to become a teacher and Dirk earning a degree in marketing, that WeBuyCars would be born. 

In 2001, WeBuyCars was established, with Faan and Dirk as the only employees. The company initially grew relativley slowly, with the first warehouse “supermarket” being opened in Pretoria East in 2010. 

This kickstarted their meteoric growth journey, with the adjacent land being acquired for more space only six months later. Within a year, their parking capacity rose six times to 700 bays. 

Faan and Dirk did everything themselves until 2012, when they appointed their first buyers to help them cope with the increased demand for their services.

“This was a turning point for us,” Faan said. “Trusting someone to do the job you love was a big thing.”

Their national expansion continued, and in 2014, WeBuyCars appointed its first buyer in Cape Town. After that, they appointed buyers in all the major towns in South Africa.

In 2017, the company opened the doors to The Car Supermarket in Midstream—Africa’s biggest car showroom, housing 1,100 cars under one roof.

The business rebranded in 2020, redesigning its website to make online transactions and auctions more accessible to the public.

They expanded their services internationally for the first time in 2022, buying and selling cars in Morocco.

What started off as a two-man operation now employs 2,750 people, with 18 supermarkets and over 100 buying pods across the country. 

WeBuyCars now has a market cap of over R15 billion on the JSE, and trades over 14,000 cars every month.