Lesaka edges back toward profit as Bank Zero deal looms

The company made a lot of money this time. Operating income went up high it increased by 265 percent to R37.04 million. The group also did well their adjusted EBITDA was up by 46 percent to R304.45 million.

These are jumps but we have to remember that they started from a low point.

The company is now making money they had an income of R60.83 million, which is a big change from last year when they lost R589.47 million.

The earnings per share also changed it is now 0.68 cents, which's a lot better, than the loss of 7.14 cents they had before.

The people in charge said that the result is what they expected for the year. They still think they will make the amount of money they thought they would. They think they will make between R6.4 billion and R6.9 billion. The group thinks they will make between R1.25 billion and R1.45 billion from their operations. Lesaka will make some money. They think they will make at R4.60 per share which is more than double what they made last year. There is one thing in this plan that the people, in charge do not all agree on according to people who know what is going on. The people who work with the margin assumptions have not really tried them out when there are not many transactions happening. They need to see how the margin assumptions work when thingsre slower. The margin assumptions are not ready because they have not been tested with transaction volumes.

The people in charge have made it clear that they do not want to think about how the proposed acquisition of Bank Zero will affect things. This deal is worth than R1 billion. It still needs to be approved by the regulators and meet all the usual requirements. Inside the company they have had to find ways to work around this deal. They have put together teams to handle the integration of Bank Zero. These teams are not doing much yet because they are waiting for the approvals. The acquisition of Bank Zero has been delayed times already which means the timeline for the acquisition of Bank Zero has slipped more than once. The acquisition of Bank Zero is still, on hold.

A return to making money would be a change for the group. The company had losses for years after its old way of doing business fell apart. From 2019 to 2021 the company, which was called Net1 at the time had losses. This happened after it lost its contract, with the South African Social Security Agency to pay out grants. The contract had helped the company make money before. When it ended the company had a problem because it did not have ways to make money.

What happened next was that they sold some of their assets they stopped doing business in areas that were not their focus and they slowly started to concentrate on things like helping merchants lending money to people and handling transactions. The company changed its name to Lesaka. That was a big part of this new start. By 2025 the amount of money they were making was steady. They were making a profit from their operations but when you look at the whole picture they were still not making money. Lesaka was doing better in some areas like merchant acquiring, consumer lending and transactional services. They still had a way to go.

This quarter is different, at least if you look at the numbers. The problem is that Lesaka still has to deal with the issue of size. Lesakas comeback depends on getting more out of what they have because what they have is not getting bigger very fast. The plan to buy Bank Zero is supposed to help with this by giving them a banking system. Until the deal is final Lesaka is working with a limitation.

The company says it is on track. The numbers suggest improvement. The approvals are still pending.