One South African company quadrupled investors’ money in under two years

Purple Group has had a tremendous run over the last eighteen months, quadrupling investors’ money on the back of strong financial results.

Purple Group, founded by Mark Barnes in 1998, is a JSE-listed financial services group which owns EasyEquities, GT247, and RISE.

The company experienced a volatile first few years on the JSE, with significant fluctuations in its share price.

Although it had good financial and trading products, it did not have a standout service which took the market by storm.

This changed in 2014 with the creation of EasyEquities, which democratised equity investing in South Africa through its Fractional Share Rights model.

The platform, which makes it easy and affordable for all South Africans to buy and sell shares, quadrupled the number of retail investors in the country.

Purple Group’s performance became closely linked to the performance of EasyEquities, and its founder, Charles Savage, became the company’s CEO.

Under Savage, EasyEquities signed partnerships with some of South Africa’s largest brands, including Telkom, Capitec, and Discovery Bank.

These partnerships enabled EasyEquities to rapidly expand its customer base. Purple Group’s interim results showed that it now has over 1 million active clients.

Over the last reporting period, EasyEquities’ client assets increased by 31% to R67 billion, with R5.3 billion in net inflows.

Retail client assets increased by 28.0% to R44.7 billion, whilst institutional client assets increased by 38.9% to R22.5 billion.

Retail Client inflows increased by 63.3%, resulting in a net cash inflow, adding 5.93% to their investments.

Easy Group contributed R216 million to Purple Group’s R238 million in group revenue for the six months ended 28 February 2025.

Easy Group’s revenue increased by 30.8% and Purple Group’s revenue increased by 25.8%, which underpinned its strong performance.

Profit attributable to ordinary shareholders rose 208.5% to R33.5 million, and basic and headline earnings per share increased 204.1% to 2.36 cents.

The company is now expanding geographically. In 2023, EasyEquities partnered with GCash in the Philippines, gaining access to over 70 million active clients.

In June 2025, the Philippines Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the fintech’s regulatory sandbox for its stock trading service.

This enables GCash to offer Filipino investors access to the largest global stocks through its partnership with EasyEquities.

“This initiative marks a pioneering step toward making global investing more accessible and seamless for Filipinos,” said GCash.

Strong share price performance from Purple Group

Purple Group and EasyEquities’ strong financial performance saw investors pump money into the share, which, in turn, drove the share price up.

In February 2024, Purple Group was trading at R0.53 per share. Since then, the share price has increased by 315% to R2.20 per share.

This means that Purple Group investors quadrupled their money over the last eighteen months, outperforming Nvidia, Microsoft, and Amazon.