Johannesburg - Liberty Holdings [JSE:LBH], South Africa’s fourth-largest insurer by market value, reported a 3% decline in full-year profit on Thursday, reflecting a contraction in earnings from its shareholder investment portfolio.
The insurer, majority owned by Africa’s biggest lender Standard Bank [JSE:SBK], said BEE normalised headline earnings per share fell to 1 403.3 cents for the year ended December, from 1 439.6c the previous year.
BEE normalised headline earnings, which exclude certain one-time items and take into account the impact of its black shareholder scheme, is Liberty's main performance measure.