Mouton's legacy on full display

Businessman Jannie Mouton proves it's never too late to build something great. He created PSG while already firmly in his middle age, and it in turn has spawned high performers like Capitec and PSG Financial Services

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Jannie Mouton started building his now famous group, PSG, at the age of 48 after being fired by the stockbroking firm that he had cofounded.

Of course, Mouton's experience as a cofounder would have made all the difference. He didn't just wake up one day as an excellent entrepreneur and capital allocator.

The nuanced learning from Mouton's story is that talented people tend to figure it out as they go along, and the best companies are often started by people at later stages in their life.

PSG started with an investment in a recruitment company that it managed to flip for an incredible profit in a short space of time. Once you have a balance sheet to work with, life changes and bigger deals can be done. But even then, the Mouton legacy goes way beyond just having access to capital.

Last week, we saw three examples of the PSG track record in action.

In the world of financial products, having strong distribution seems to be more important than anything else. PSG Financial Services is one of the best case studies for this in South Africa.

It has an army of advisers out there servicing clients across the country, from big cities to rural areas. The model works, as evidenced by the share price's massive gains over five years. Sure, that's using a Covid base in 2020, but a return of nearly 30% in the past year has no such caveat.