Johannesburg - South Africa’s Liberty Holdings
[JSE:LBH] posted an expected 43% rise in first-half earnings on Thursday as Africa’s third-largest life insurer by market value wrote more premiums and its investment portfolio yielded better returns.
Liberty, majority owned by South Africa’s Standard Bank
[JSE:SBK], said basic earnings per share totalled 632.7 cents in the six months to end-June, compared with 443c a year ago.
The company announced a dividend per share of 192c from 182c previously.
The company flagged last month that earnings would be between 570c and 650c per share.
Liberty said insurance sales rose 22% to R2.7bn while the asset management business saw R5.4bn of net inflows.
Its assets under management grew nearly 8% to R484bn ($58.55bn) the investment portfolio saw a gross return of 6.4%.
Liberty shares have gained 25% so far this year, compared with a 36% rise in Johannesburg’s index of life insurance companies.
Standard Bank is due to report its results later this month.
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