{"id":13099,"date":"2012-08-02T13:55:26","date_gmt":"2012-08-02T11:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/08\/update-2-s-africas-liberty-h1-profit-up-eyes-ghana-and-nigeria\/"},"modified":"2012-08-02T13:55:26","modified_gmt":"2012-08-02T11:55:26","slug":"update-2-s-africas-liberty-h1-profit-up-eyes-ghana-and-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-2-s-africas-liberty-h1-profit-up-eyes-ghana-and-nigeria\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 2-S.Africa&#8217;s Liberty H1 profit up, eyes Ghana and Nigeria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Basic earnings at 637.2 cents per share vs 443 cents<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Dividend per share rises to 192 cents from 182 cents<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Shares up 25 percent this year<\/p>\n<p> (Recasts, adds CEO remarks)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Helen Nyambura-Mwaura<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>JOHANNESBURG, Aug 2 (Reuters) &#8211; Liberty Holdings,<br \/>\nAfrica&#8217;s third-largest life insurer by market value, posted an<br \/>\nexpected 43 percent rise in first-half earnings on Thursday and<br \/>\nsaid it was looking for expansion opportunities in the western<br \/>\npart of the continent.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Liberty, majority owned by South Africa&#8217;s Standard Bank<br \/>\n, owns 50 percent on a Nigerian health insurer but wants<br \/>\nmore exposure to Africa&#8217;s most populous nation and is also<br \/>\neyeing new oil producer, Ghana.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Africa is definitely worth the effort. Clearly it has its<br \/>\nchallenges, but we think if you don&#8217;t position yourself for the<br \/>\nopportunity in Africa, there&#8217;s a good chance you&#8217;ll miss it,&#8221;<br \/>\nCEO Bruce Hemphill said in a conference call.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Liberty, which has operations in 14 African countries, said<br \/>\nassets under management in Africa excluding its home country<br \/>\nremained flat at 39 billion rand. African earnings outside South<br \/>\nAfrica were also stagnant.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The company&#8217;s earnings per share totalled 632.7 cents in the<br \/>\nsix months to end-June, compared with 443 cents a year ago as it<br \/>\nwrote more premiums and its investment portfolio yielded better<br \/>\nreturns.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Basic earnings at 637.2 cents per share vs 443 cents * Dividend per share rises to 192 cents from 182 cents * Shares up 25 percent this year (Recasts, adds CEO remarks) By Helen Nyambura-Mwaura JOHANNESBURG, Aug 2 (Reuters) &#8211; Liberty Holdings, Africa&#8217;s third-largest life insurer by market value, posted an expected 43 percent [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-13099","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13099\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}