Discovery lifts earnings, plans R5bn rights issue

Johannesburg - Leading health insurer Discovery [JSE:DSY] said on Tuesday it plans a rights issue to raise as much as R5bn ($429m) to finance expansion, sending its shares down nearly 4%.

Discovery is offering the new shares at R90 each, compared with the R112.38 its stock was trading at on the Johannesburg stock exchange at 09:46.

The insurer, which has operations in Europe and Asia, said its rights issue was underwritten by Rand Merchant Insurance Holdings.

Diluted normalised headline earnings for the first six months to the end of December rose 17% to 340.3 cents a share, the company said. Normalised headline earnings exclude certain one-off items.