Rand Merchant Investment Holdings , which owns Outsurance and has stakes in Discovery and MMI, said on Tuesday headline earnings fell 7% to R3.8bn in the year to end-June, partly as a result of a rise in insurance claims.
The group owns 25% of Discovery, 29.9% of UK-listed insurer Hastings, 27.3% of MMI, 89.1% of Outsurance. It is the largest shareholder in all of these companies. RMI declared a final dividend of 65c per share, unchanged from the prior comparative period. Its total dividend rose to 110c from 104c. RMI’s focus for new investments in future will be predominantly in SA, the UK and Australia, it said, with a bias for unlisted, emerging markets and property and casualty insurance investments.