Smart Money – Karooooo founder and CEO Zak Calisto

In this Smart Money with Alishia Seckam interview, Karooooo founder and CEO Zak Calisto discusses the company’s impressive growth over the past 24 years.

Before founding Karooooo, he was a member of Vehicle Tracking Services – a company that specialised in the distribution of telematics services – from 1994 to 2001.

He also served as a member of Cell Communications, a company specialising in distributing telecommunication services, from 1994 to 1996.

In 2001, Calisto founded Cartrack Holdings in partnership with Netstar. Under his leadership, the company quickly became a tracking, data analytics, and business intelligence powerhouse.

Cartrack Holdings separated from Netstar in 2004 and was listed on the JSE in 2014.

Under Calisto, the company continued to expand globally, entering markets like South East Asia, New Zealand, and the United States.

In 2021, Cartrack Holdings rebranded to Karooooo and was listed on the Nasdaq with a secondary listing on the JSE.

Thanks to the incredible success of Karooooo, the share price enjoyed 66% growth over the last year.

Calisto and Karooooo continued to have strong ambitions for the future, having set the following goals for the 2024/25 financial year:

• Grow Cartrack’s subscriber base to between 2.2 million and 2.4 million.
• Grow Cartrack subscription revenue to between R3.9 billion and R4.15 billion.
• Grow Cartrack’s operating profit margin by 27% to 31%.
• Increase Karooooo’s earnings per share to between R27.50 and R31.00.

The interview

In this Smart Money interview, Calisto outlines his original goal for Karooooo, and what has driven the strong growth the company is enjoying.

He reveals the importance of continuous expansion into new territories compared to organic growth and explains how Karooooo has pulled the appropriate levers to perform these expansions.

Calisto then discusses the investments Karooooo is making in AI tools to serve its customers and future-proof its business.

He concludes the interview by unpacking where he expects to see the strongest growth for the company and provides his ten-year outlook for Karooooo.

Watch the interview with Zak Calisto below.