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Johannesburg - South Africa's fourth-largest insurer Liberty Holdings [JSE:LBH] reported a 6% increase in half-year profit on Friday as strong demand from corporate clients offset a weak showing from its equity investments portfolio.
Liberty, a unit of South African lender Standard Bank [JSE:SBK], said headline EPS came in at 705.5 cents in the six months to the end of June compared with 664.7c a year earlier.
Headline EPS, which excludes the impact of the firm's black economic empowerment scheme and other one-off items, is the main profit measure.
Net client cash flow or the difference between money received from customers and given back to customers, fell 11% to R10.3bn as its mainstay middle-class customers begin to feel the pressure of a slow economic growth, job losses and higher energy prices
Like rivals, Liberty is pushing further into the rest of Africa as decades of economic growth has increased the number of people who can invest in insurance to protect their wealth.
Liberty said businesses outside its home market hardly grew during the period due to weak investment markets in East Africa.
