Old Mutual on Monday (11 March) announced its first full year financial results, following its primary listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in June 2018.<\/p>\n
The group\u2019s headline earnings for the 12 months ending 31 December 2018 are up 8% to R14 241 million from R13 144 million in the prior year.<\/p>\n
Adjusted earnings declined to R11.51 billion compared with R12.95 billion a year earlier.<\/p>\n
However, headline earnings per share (HEPS) declined 239.1 cents, compared with 271.1 cents a year earlier, when adjusted to account for a break-up from Nedbank.<\/span><\/p>\n Results from operations (RFO) amounted to R9.963 billion, from R10.367 billion in 2017.<\/p>\n \u201cPersistently high unemployment rates, a value added tax-rate increase and fuel hikes contributed to lower real disposable incomes for our retail customers in South Africa,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis adversely affected our customer acquisition and persistency, especially in the middle-income market.\u201d<\/p>\n Old Mutual\u2019s CEO, Peter Moyo said that the group delivered well on its medium- term targets and commitments made to investors.<\/p>\n “We delivered Return on Net Asset Value of 18.6% which exceeds our Cost of Equity+4% target, which sat at 17.4% for 2018. We continue to be a highly cash generative business with R6.6 billion of free cash generated in 2018 which has more than covered our dividends to our shareholders.<\/p>\n “Our group capital position remains robust with a solvency ratio of 170%, near the upper end of our target range. Sadly, we did not meet our Results from Operations (RFO) growth target of GDP+2%. However, we are still confident that we will meet all our targets in the medium term, noting that the RFO target will be difficult given the negative growth in 2018,” said Moyo.<\/p>\n The group also announced a final dividend of 72 cents per share, bringing its total ordinary dividend per share to 117 cents a share, in line with its dividend policy.<\/p>\n Old Mutual also announced its intention to conduct a share buy-back programme of approximately R2 billion in 2019.<\/p>\n “We have managed our capital well and continue to be responsible to our shareholders in the way we deploy capital,” said Moyo.<\/p>\n “I am pleased with the progress we have made against our eight Battlegrounds. We delivered particularly good sales and Net Client Cash Flows (NCCF) in a tough economic and competitive environment. We have also improved our customer experience through digital enhancements and the delivery of key phases of our IT refresh journey.”<\/p>\n “Whilst we continue to see economic headwinds in the near term, our group is resilient, well capitalised and managing its costs tightly,” he said.<\/p>\n
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