Capitec's share price has surged more than 137% since Gerrie Fourie took over from Riaan Stassen last year as the bank's boss. Early last year, many analysts wrote off Fourie and the Stellenbosch-based bank, saying he had "inherited a mess from Stassen" at a time when unsecured loans were no longer flavour of the month.The unsecured lending industry was experiencing negative growth, declining 14% or R9.2-billion for the first three calendar quarters of 2014 compared with the same period in 2013, when credit declined by 11%, according to National Credit Regulator statistics. This was partly due to a fall in loans offered by African Bank after it was placed under curatorship. Soon after, Moody's downgraded Capitec's rating.But under Fourie, Capitec's return on equity grew to 25% from 23%. Client numbers over the year to end-February surged from 5.4million to 6.2million, and 1191 new jobs were created over that period compared with 762 in the previous year, according to the company's results released this week."Every time you write us off, we keep coming back, so keep writing us off," Fourie joked.When African Bank collapsed, Capitec was painted with the same brush - as the share price showed - but this is no longer the case.nbsp;Michael Treherne, portfolio manager at Vestact Asset Management, said the market had realised that Capitec was a different beast from African Bank. For a banking stock, Capitec had an expensive share price, he said - but he would not be surprised if it doubled to nearly R1000 a share in the next five years. "They are priced for growth," Treherne said.On Friday, the share closed at R495.00.The lender said that over the 2014 financial year it grew earnings and headline earnings by 26% to R2.5-billion. Its share price jumped more than 8% on the news, crossing the psychological R500-a-share level for the first time before retreating by the end of the week.Capitec executives said its earnings growth could have been bigger if it were not for the five-month strike in the mining industry, to which Capitec is exposed, with 7% of its customers working there. South Africa's youngest bank was also affected by the unimpressive 1.5% growth in the economy.Fourie said the bank's success was due to its narrow focus, in contrast to banks that have expanded elsewhere in Africa and run commercial lending.Capitec had been expected to take advantage of African Bank's demise and steal its clients, but it has been cautious in granting loans. It did not rush in to fill the void. Rather, it was focusing on signing up higher-income and younger clients, Fourie said.The JSE-listed low-cost bank has been identified with low-income earners as it started by opening branches in rural areas, but now it is attracting affluent middle- and high-income earners as it sets up outlets in urban areas.Primary bank clients - who have their salaries deposited in Capitec accounts - amount to 44% of the total active client base of 6.2million. Capitec still signs up 100000 new clients every month. Fourie said he was comfortable with the lender's credit figures, where arrears came down from 6.5% to 5.4% (R2-billion). Although Fourie does not want to call this a "sweet spot", it is an incredible achievement given the dire economic environment the country finds itself in, according to him.However, impairments increased slightly, by 6% to R3.9-billion, which, according to Fourie, was a result of the prolonged mining strike.Capitec increased its provisioning on high-risk clients who are in arrears. These were rescheduled in the past six months, from 33% to 42%.The bank was hit by a staggering 25% increase in costs. Fourie said 12% of the cost was due to staff bonuses and share appreciation rights, which came to a total of R358-million.He said the group had expected lower growth due to the challenging environment, but since it did better than expected, it had to pay its staff bonuses as part of its incentive scheme. T o add to that, its share price jumped from R200 to R410, increasing the costs of share appreciation for the group."So if you take that into consideration, our operation expenditure grew by 13.5%, which is in line with our expansion [strategy]," Fourie said.Staff bonuses came to R254-million; share price appreciation accounted for R104-million.It declared a R5.90 annual dividend...