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Speaker 1: The Money Show, Shape Shift is it's just gone twenty

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Speaker 1: four minutes now to eighth the time. Well, sometimes someone

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Speaker 1: comes along and it comes together with a group of

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Speaker 1: people and together they are actually able to completely disrupt

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Speaker 1: an entire industry. And one of those people is Charles Savage.

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Speaker 1: He's currently the CEO of the Purple Creep, their own

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Speaker 1: Easy Equities. And what they did was they were able

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Speaker 1: to change the way you trade, chair stocks, ETFs, all

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Speaker 1: sorts of things completely differently to what things were, say

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Speaker 1: thirty or forty years ago. And I'm very pleased to

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Speaker 1: tell you that we've been able to drag him out

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Speaker 1: of the sea and or for surfboard, and he's agreed

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Speaker 1: to speak to you tonight. Charles Savage. Good evening, and

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Speaker 1: thanks so much for taking the time to speak to us.

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Speaker 2: Good evening everyone, and thanks Stephen for having me on.

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Speaker 1: I understand, and I got this from the Easy Equities website.

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Speaker 1: You're a keen surfer, but you studied you were at

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Speaker 1: School of sin Stithians and the last time I checked,

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Speaker 1: they didn't have a surf school. How are you able to.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I was at Sachs Junior in Cape Town, so

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Speaker 2: I grew up. I was born and bred in Cape Town.

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Speaker 2: I went to high school at Saint Stidians and then

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Speaker 2: went to UCT for university. So up until the last

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Speaker 2: two decade, spent a better part of my life at

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Speaker 2: the coast. But I to classify myself as a surfer

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Speaker 2: as a little bit of the stretch of the imagination,

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Speaker 2: given how far I lived from the sea today.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, and I mean it happens to so many

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Speaker 1: of us. I mean, I didn't have a surfing career

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Speaker 1: at all, but I know what it's like. You you

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Speaker 1: went through a phase. So after UCT, it seemed that

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Speaker 1: you were sort of going around the world kind of

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Speaker 1: as much as you could. And then you, I don't

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Speaker 1: know if the right word is stumbled into the world

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Speaker 1: of the Internet. And I remember that period. The Internet

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Speaker 1: was a new thing. We had these terrible dial up

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Speaker 1: modems from Telcom. What were you seeing at the time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. I mean I'd never heard of the

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Speaker 2: Internet until I was not traveling, and then kind of

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Speaker 2: every backpack as I ended up at had an int terminal,

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Speaker 2: and for my generation, it replaced the need for a

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Speaker 2: telephone and a fax machine, and online commerce was no

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Speaker 2: sense for almost non existent at the time, but it

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Speaker 2: was starting and there were two industries that caught my attention.

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Speaker 2: The one was just the travel industries. It was just

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Speaker 2: so much more convenient to be able to use the

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Speaker 2: Internet to find accommodation, to book a flight, et cetera.

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Speaker 2: And the other one was connected to an interest that

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Speaker 2: I had at university, which was investing in shares, and

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Speaker 2: there were no share investment platforms but back then. But

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Speaker 2: I started to wonder or think about what it might

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Speaker 2: be like if students like me could access the Internet

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Speaker 2: to make investments and buy shares. But honestly, back then

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Speaker 2: I was naive because the ecosystem was just so poor.

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Speaker 2: Everything was slow, it was expensive, you didn't have mobile

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Speaker 2: phones in your hands. But it sowed the seeds for

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Speaker 2: eventually what happened decades later with easy equities.

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Speaker 1: So you went through a phase of basically working in

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Speaker 1: internet commerce. I mean, I don't know what exactly you

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Speaker 1: were doing was at marketing, but lots of different websites,

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Speaker 1: I presume, because suddenly everybody realized you needed a website

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Speaker 1: otherwise you just weren't going to be alive as a

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Speaker 1: company anymore.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, my first job when I got back from traveling

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Speaker 2: around the world. My first real job was actually internal

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Speaker 2: accountant at Health and Racket Club, which is what Virgin

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Speaker 2: Active became. And that was a pretty disappointing experience. I mean,

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Speaker 2: all those who are old enough like me to know

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Speaker 2: what happened there, but that was one of the biggest

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Speaker 2: corporate frauds from a listed company up until that point.

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Speaker 2: And I was internal audit. So it was I'd been

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Speaker 2: there twelve or fifteen months, and you know, dispassion. It

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Speaker 2: was dispassion about what I was doing. And a friend

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Speaker 2: of mine from university was building websites for this e

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Speaker 2: commerce the start of the e commerce kind of dot

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Speaker 2: com era, and he was just having so much fun

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Speaker 2: with it, and it connected back to my travels, and

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Speaker 2: here was a guy doing what I thought might might

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Speaker 2: be worth doing, and so I jumped ship. And I

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Speaker 2: hadn't never sold a website. I'd hardly used the Internet.

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Speaker 2: I wrote a little bit of code at university. I

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Speaker 2: double majored in accounts and it so I could write

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Speaker 2: a little bit of code. And I joined them and

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Speaker 2: to st build all of almost all of the first

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Speaker 2: in category e commerce sites in South Africa, and interestingly,

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Speaker 2: the first one we ever built and launched which was

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Speaker 2: the first e commace on South Africa sold South African

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Speaker 2: seeds to the rest of the world. And you know

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Speaker 2: who would have thought of that back then, But we

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Speaker 2: the benefit that we got was we managed to look

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Speaker 2: inside all of these disparate businesses, understand their business models,

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Speaker 2: and then bring their catalogs and their businesses online, which

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Speaker 2: was it was like an MBA for me because I'd

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Speaker 2: been so one, I'd had very few jobs to very

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Speaker 2: little experience as a result of that, and what I'd

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Speaker 2: studied wasn't really business, and so it gave me a

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Speaker 2: kind of accelerated view or an NBA if you like,

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Speaker 2: view to what the future of commerce might look like

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Speaker 2: back in nineteen ninety eight, nineteen eighty nine.

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Speaker 1: So in a way, you were right at the beginning

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Speaker 1: of the revolution. And I've often noticed that that people

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Speaker 1: who we speak to as a shape shifter and people

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Speaker 1: who've been very successful in a society are able to

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Speaker 1: get in at the start of a big change. And clearly,

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Speaker 1: from what you're saying, you got to have an understanding

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Speaker 1: of that that was probably lightly as ahead of where

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Speaker 1: just about everybody else was.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, everyone was against the Internet, and you know,

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Speaker 2: it feels no different to what AI feels like today. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: you know, there were fine percent of the people that

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Speaker 2: were passionate about what the internet was going to do.

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Speaker 2: There were another you know, fifteen or twenty percent who

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Speaker 2: could believe the future but weren't leaning into it. And

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Speaker 2: then the vast majority just said it was a phase,

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Speaker 2: it was a fad, it would pass, and I thing

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Speaker 2: would ever, you know, come of it. And they all

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Speaker 2: celebrated because they believed they were right when the dot

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Speaker 2: com bubble burst, and the truth was there was way

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Speaker 2: too much exuberance about how quickly the e commerce might

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Speaker 2: get traction. But the five percent were right, they were

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Speaker 2: just early, and the fifteen percent were right to be skeptical.

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Speaker 2: But we're watching it close and probably counted themselves as

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Speaker 2: early adopters, and you know, the eighty percent were wrong.

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Speaker 2: And I feel the same way exactly about AI now.

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Speaker 2: And so you know, for me, if I look back

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Speaker 2: at it, it's easy to pick the fastest streams. And

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Speaker 2: I think, as as youngsters looking for a career, you

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Speaker 2: just got to find yourself in a stream that's moving

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Speaker 2: faster than the other streams. Because even the slowest boat,

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Speaker 2: and the fast moving stream moves faster than a fast

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Speaker 2: boat in a slow moving stream. And that's for me

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Speaker 2: what the Internet presented. It was a we were we

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Speaker 2: had the opportunity to be a boat and a very

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Speaker 2: fast moving stream, and there weren't that many boats with us.

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Speaker 2: So it was was it was right place, right time,

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Speaker 2: a bit of luck and a little bit of foresight,

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Speaker 2: but yeah, lots of luck, I guess.

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Speaker 1: So you'd already had in your head the idea of

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Speaker 1: being able to sort of trade online, a much more

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Speaker 1: direct way of trading. When did you think it might

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Speaker 1: actually rarely first be possible to sort of start what

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Speaker 1: you eventually started.

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Speaker 2: Well, in two thousand, I one of my biggest clients

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Speaker 2: was a company called GT two four seven dot com,

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Speaker 2: which is still in the Purple Group today, And there

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Speaker 2: were a bunch of international founders, one South African and

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Speaker 2: four internationals who believed that the Internet was going to

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Speaker 2: change trading, specifically derivatives trading what we call CfDS today,

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Speaker 2: And they convinced me that the future had arrived for that,

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Speaker 2: and I jumped ship and I became CETO of the

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Speaker 2: group and focused on one business, you know, one online

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Speaker 2: e commerce business, and at the time it was it

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Speaker 2: looked like it was a market opportunity for everyone, but

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Speaker 2: we quickly worked out that not everyone had access and

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Speaker 2: that fundamentally TAD was a sophisticated game, and so we

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Speaker 2: really focused on sophisticated places, sophisticated people, and building platforms

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Speaker 2: for people who knew. We had a high level of

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Speaker 2: confidence and skills, and from two thousand to two thousand

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Speaker 2: and seven we built a business. We raised two million

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Speaker 2: dollars to fund the business, and in two thousand and

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Speaker 2: seven that business sold to Purple Group what was Purple

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Speaker 2: Capital the Purple Group today for thirty six million euros,

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Speaker 2: so kind of eighteen times its money in seven years.

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Speaker 2: And we had customers all around the globe. We had

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Speaker 2: offices on every continent, We had customers almost on every

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Speaker 2: content as well. We were training across forty four exchanges.

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Speaker 2: But the truth was at that time that thirty six

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Speaker 2: million euro business served less than twenty thousand customers. So

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Speaker 2: it was a very niche business servicing highly sophisticated customers,

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Speaker 2: and that was I guess the foundation for what became

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Speaker 2: Easy Equities, because that game was very niche. I didn't

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Speaker 2: speak to my desire to get if you like, students investing,

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Speaker 2: young people investing, and we served the needs of a

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Speaker 2: very small group of sophisticated individuals who quite frankly, didn't

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Speaker 2: need us. And it wasn't changing people's lives in a

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Speaker 2: positive way. It wasn't something that I had a big

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Speaker 2: runway for growth or positive influence on society. And I

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Speaker 2: kind of lost interest in that, and it took me

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Speaker 2: a whole lot longer to work out why and what

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Speaker 2: to do next. And that came about in twenty thirteen

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Speaker 2: where I was sitting on a beach with friends and

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Speaker 2: family in Mozambique, and all of them have known me

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Speaker 2: for a long time, and I said to them, why

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Speaker 2: is it that none of you invest? Because the dialogue

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Speaker 2: that we used as brokers was that the customers were

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Speaker 2: poor savers, that the customer was fundamentally the problem, and

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Speaker 2: at the end they were just you know, they were

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Speaker 2: never going to take it up because they'd rather buy

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Speaker 2: cars than buy shares. And I asked everyone on the

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Speaker 2: beach to say, what is it? Is it us? Have

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Speaker 2: we credit the wrong products and services? Or is it

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Speaker 2: due are just not interested? And all of them, and

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Speaker 2: some of them were twelve years old and some of

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Speaker 2: them were forty years old, but all of them said

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Speaker 2: the same thing in a different way. And the answer

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Speaker 2: led to easy equities, because what they said is they'd

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Speaker 2: tried it. They were intimidated. Was it seemed too sophisticated,

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Speaker 2: The concepts were unfamiliar with them. The words we used

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Speaker 2: and the language we used felt like a closed private group.

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Speaker 2: And so and the next thing they said is and

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Speaker 2: I said to them, I said, well, what if we

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Speaker 2: make it easy? And they said, well, then we would

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Speaker 2: all buy shares, every single one of us, and we

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Speaker 2: would do it all the time. And that was you know,

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Speaker 2: I don't know why it took me so long to

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Speaker 2: ask my customers they needed of us, but that was

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Speaker 2: the foundation for easy Equities.

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Speaker 1: So, I mean, I was trying to think of the

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Speaker 1: of what it was like before, and what it was

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Speaker 1: like before was kind of I mean, probably the right

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Speaker 1: word is stuffy. But you know, you'd see an old movie,

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Speaker 1: someone will say, call my broker, you know, because they

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Speaker 1: want to make a trade. So it was really a

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Speaker 1: big change. And I also wondered that when you were starting,

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Speaker 1: most people would have been sitting maybe at home, maybe

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Speaker 1: at work on a PC, you know, one of those

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Speaker 1: things that has a box and a fan and then

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Speaker 1: another monitor and a mouse and trading like that. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't like it is now where you would just have

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Speaker 1: an app on your phone, and that might also have

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Speaker 1: been sort of one of the reasons why suddenly there

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Speaker 1: was a widespread adoption a bit later.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly right, Stephen. I mean the ecosystem for these

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Speaker 2: business models like ours is firstly, you need money to smooth,

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Speaker 2: to move easily through the system. And so when you

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Speaker 2: think about that, what do you mean, Well, you need

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Speaker 2: lots of bank accounts and you need low cost access

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Speaker 2: to moving money, which wasn't around until the last decade.

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Speaker 2: You know, the proliferation of bank accounts, you know, thanks

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Speaker 2: to F and B and Capy Tech and Discovery Bank

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Speaker 2: and everyone else, has only happened in the last two decades.

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Speaker 2: So the ecosystem for money to move cheaply and easily

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Speaker 2: through the ecosystem has only been built in the last

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Speaker 2: two decades, so you couldn't have done it before then.

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Speaker 2: Then you need low cost, high speed access to the Internet,

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Speaker 2: now that has only happened in the last decade. I mean,

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Speaker 2: you know a decade ago, you were paying three to

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Speaker 2: four times what you pay today for one tenth of

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Speaker 2: the speed and access point, and so not everyone could

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Speaker 2: access the Internet. And then the final piece you need

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Speaker 2: is you need a device to access that Internet wherever

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Speaker 2: you might be. And the PC didn't serve that needed

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Speaker 2: only served the needs of people who were in the

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Speaker 2: were either in the employer of a company that gave

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Speaker 2: them PCs or had the means to buy PCs for themselves,

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Speaker 2: which again was highly exclusionary. And if you just look

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Speaker 2: at where we stand today, all of those things have

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Speaker 2: been addressed, those ecosystem friction points, but without them, there

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Speaker 2: would be no e commerce model for Easy ex Is

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Speaker 2: to sit on top of. So the eco system players

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Speaker 2: have done their job and given us our moments so

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Speaker 2: that we can reach our customers wherever they might be,

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Speaker 2: so they can invest in the shares they love.

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Speaker 1: Your shape shifter. This evening is Charles Savage. He's with

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Speaker 1: us through until eight o'clock. We have another ten minutes

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Speaker 1: with them. He's the CEO of the Purple Group. But

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Speaker 1: rarely you'll probably know the brand Easy Equities and how

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Speaker 1: they've changed trading. More from Charles in a moment the

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Speaker 1: money show. Shape shifter is your shape shifter this evening.

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Speaker 1: Charles Savage, the CEO of the Purple Group and of

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Speaker 1: course one of the founders of Easy Equities. Charles have

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Speaker 1: one or two questions about the sort of service as

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Speaker 1: it is now. An obvious one is how many people

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Speaker 1: are kind of online trading at any one time. And

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Speaker 1: I'm sure you kind of have that dart and I'm

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Speaker 1: sure it's quite quite changeable during the day.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So we've got there one point two million active

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Speaker 2: customers in the group. At any at any point during

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Speaker 2: the DIA, there's about eight to twelve percent of them

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Speaker 2: online checking their portfolios, looking for a new share to

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Speaker 2: buy or one to sell. But at the peak periods,

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Speaker 2: and typically you know, the peak periods are on market open,

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Speaker 2: so all the open JC open and then US open.

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Speaker 2: You'll get as much as thirty five to forty percent

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Speaker 2: of your customers online at a single moment. And again,

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Speaker 2: you know, in specific news events, so for example, an

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Speaker 2: interest rate decision or Trump talking about a war in Iran,

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Speaker 2: that concentrates minds and thoughts around their portfolio, not because

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Speaker 2: they want to buy or sell, but to see what

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Speaker 2: those events, what the effect of those events might be

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Speaker 2: on their portfolio.

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Speaker 1: I would presume at times like now, with the conflicts

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Speaker 1: in Iran and Trump being so changeable and frankly irrational,

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Speaker 1: you see a lot more traffic people checking their portfolios

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Speaker 1: a bit more often.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fascinating. So whenever there's a market dislocation because

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Speaker 2: of an event like Trump, be it a positive or

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Speaker 2: a negative one, there's more media around the consequences for

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Speaker 2: financial markets, which means you've got free advertising, and so

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Speaker 2: there's a direct correlation. The more news worthy the markets are,

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Speaker 2: the more customers register and join us. So there's a

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Speaker 2: direct correlation between the newsflow and who joins us.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to try and put this as politely as

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Speaker 1: I can because it's such an interesting point. But Warren

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Speaker 1: Ingram does personal finance with us once a week, and

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Speaker 1: he always says, you shouldn't be looking at your portfolio

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Speaker 1: all the time. You should be making your decisions, stick

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Speaker 1: to a strategy and sort of loss it, you know,

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Speaker 1: leave it there. Your customers are doing something very different,

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Speaker 1: and part of me thinks, well, maybe they're making more money.

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Speaker 1: I can hear Warren Ingram in my head saying, well,

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Speaker 1: maybe they aren't. I mean, I don't know if you

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Speaker 1: have a view on that.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: I don't mean to attack your business model, but it's

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Speaker 1: such an interesting question, merchant.

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Speaker 2: It's a fascinating question. And I'm I know Warren well

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Speaker 2: and he'll know that I would argue with him on

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Speaker 2: this point. But that is the dialogue, or that is

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Speaker 2: the narrative that the industry wanted you to believe, and

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Speaker 2: they believed in themselves. I mean, I'll never forget this.

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Speaker 2: When we started Easy Equities, I found myself in the

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Speaker 2: boardroom of a very large asset manager I won't name them,

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Speaker 2: and I told them what we were doing, and we

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Speaker 2: wanted their support. We wanted them to list their funds

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Speaker 2: on our platform. And they turned around to me and said,

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Speaker 2: and this was the CEO of this organization. He said

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Speaker 2: to me, Charles, what you're doing is irresponsible. Customers are

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Speaker 2: not smart enough to look after their portfolios. Their behavior

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Speaker 2: will let them down. We're here to protect them. Now,

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Speaker 2: what Warren is saying is a long way from that.

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Speaker 2: But here's what eleven years of watching these customers do

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Speaker 2: what they what they want to do, not what they

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Speaker 2: told to do. Here's what they do Firstly, they make

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Speaker 2: as much money from the market as the top twenty

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Speaker 2: five percent of asset managers, So they would rank if

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Speaker 2: you took easy equities and you said put all the

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Speaker 2: funds together and said what's the return profile versus our

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Speaker 2: unit trust industry, they would be in the top quartal,

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Speaker 2: so in the top twenty five percent. So they are

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Speaker 2: doing as well as the best asset managers. That's the

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Speaker 2: first thing. The second thing is they're getting better at

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Speaker 2: doing it. Now, why with hindsight, what can we unpack?

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Speaker 2: Because they pitch up. Every time they pitch up as

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Speaker 2: an opportunity to engage and to learn something new, to

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Speaker 2: learn that the effects of Trump having worn Iran increases

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Speaker 2: oil price. Increased oil prices means there's going to inflationary pressure.

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Speaker 2: Bonds are going to come under pressure, and so will

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Speaker 2: some equities, but some other equities will respond positively. They

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Speaker 2: fundamentally have learned this because they're engaging with it every

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Speaker 2: single day. The narrative that we must stand back from

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Speaker 2: our portfolios and just let it ride is it's naive

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Speaker 2: because the truth is, and any asset manager will say this,

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Speaker 2: is that investing is a long term game and the

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Speaker 2: education is forever. And what you want is your customers

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Speaker 2: is to go on this education journey together with you,

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Speaker 2: to check in on their portfolios and to ask the

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Speaker 2: question why why did it go up? Why did it

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Speaker 2: go down? And then to say, well, what should I

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Speaker 2: do about it? And it's incredible to watch how sophisticated

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Speaker 2: these portfolios are, how well these customers are doing, and

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Speaker 2: how much better are they getting? And if I can

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Speaker 2: just leave one number behind, it's this because people would say,

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Speaker 2: you know whatever, Charles is talking his own business, but

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Speaker 2: he has a number and it's in our financials and

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Speaker 2: so it's an audited number. Our customers have on average

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Speaker 2: grown their portfolios for eleven years now at a compounded

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Speaker 2: annual growth rate of fifty percent. Now half of that

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Speaker 2: thirty percent comes from their deposit behavior. So obviously they're

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Speaker 2: depositing more money every year, which is excellent, but the

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Speaker 2: other half of that is coming from the market. And

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Speaker 2: over the eleven last eleven years, the all share has

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Speaker 2: not returned a compounded return of fifteen percent year and yeah,

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Speaker 2: an aggregate. As an average, our customers are outperforming the

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Speaker 2: market that the home market they live in, and they're

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Speaker 2: pitching up with more capital every single year and growing

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Speaker 2: their portfolios in total by thirty percent. Ye're on you,

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Speaker 2: and that for me is I could never have predicted that.

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Speaker 2: That's the observed intelligence and the advice I would give

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Speaker 2: to any asset manager, any advisor out there, or anybody

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Speaker 2: in financial services is trust your clients to be smarter

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Speaker 2: than you, and they'll pitch up and show you how

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Speaker 2: smart they are.

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Speaker 1: Sure chance, I'm so glad I asked the question that

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Speaker 1: it's so interesting. I mean, this is a debate that

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Speaker 1: could go on forever. I'm supposed to at this point

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Speaker 1: in the conversation ask what do you do for fun?

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Speaker 1: And I don't know if training is part of it.

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Speaker 1: And I also have to tell you that that because

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Speaker 1: everybody gives the same answer. I go jogging and spend

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Speaker 1: time with my family. It can't be one of those

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Speaker 1: two things. Are there things that you do to kind

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Speaker 1: of relax? Are their places you like to go to?

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Speaker 1: They supports you like to watch or things you like

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Speaker 1: to bry?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm mad about Mozambique. It connects me back to

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Speaker 2: the ocean. It's a place I can dive and surf

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Speaker 2: and fish and spend time with my family. All in

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Speaker 2: one place, and so any opportunity I get is to

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Speaker 2: go to is Mozambique, surf, dive, fish family, and I'll

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Speaker 2: add just travel. I think the life's luxury is travel

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Speaker 2: and experiences that come from travel.

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Speaker 1: Sure, Charles, I've really enjoy talking to you. I find

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Speaker 1: it really educational. Thank you so much. Charles Savage is

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Speaker 1: the CEO at the Purple Group, and Easy Equities is

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Speaker 1: the way that you'll know him.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Interesting to just hear his passion and to hear how

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Speaker 1: in fact he is so still invested to use the

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Speaker 1: phrase in what he's doing. Really interesting, Charles Savage, Thank

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Speaker 1: you so much,