{"id":13305,"date":"2012-08-08T14:16:52","date_gmt":"2012-08-08T12:16:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/08\/update-2-old-mutual-profit-rises-on-s-african-bank-strength\/"},"modified":"2012-08-08T14:16:52","modified_gmt":"2012-08-08T12:16:52","slug":"update-2-old-mutual-profit-rises-on-s-african-bank-strength","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-2-old-mutual-profit-rises-on-s-african-bank-strength\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 2-Old Mutual profit rises on S.African bank strength"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* H1 pretax op. profit 791 mln pounds vs. 776 mln consensus<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Repays 603 mln pounds debt in year to date<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Eyeing move into Nigerian non-life insurance<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Shares down 0.9 pct, underperforming sector<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>LONDON, Aug 8 (Reuters) &#8211; Insurer Old Mutual<br \/>\nreported a better-than-expected 12 percent rise in half-year<br \/>\nprofit, helped by a strong performance at its South African<br \/>\nbanking unit, and said it was pressing ahead with plans to<br \/>\nexpand in sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Old Mutual, which runs insurance, banking and fund<br \/>\nmanagement businesses in about 30 countries, made a pretax<br \/>\noperating profit of 791 million pounds ($1.24 billion) in the<br \/>\nfirst six months, surpassing the 776 million pounds expected by<br \/>\nanalysts in a company poll.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The improvement was driven by a 27 percent jump in profit at<br \/>\nNedbank, Old Mutual&#8217;s majority-owned South African<br \/>\nbanking business. That outweighed &#8220;challenging&#8221; conditions at<br \/>\nthe group&#8217;s Europe-focused wealth management division.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Chief Executive Julian Roberts declined to comment on<br \/>\nwhether Old Mutual still intended to sell Nedbank under a<br \/>\nthree-year old retrenchment plan aimed at reducing debt and<br \/>\nsoothing investor fears the group&#8217;s sprawling structure has held<br \/>\nback its shares.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s clear Nedbank has contributed greatly,&#8221; he told<br \/>\nreporters on a conference call. &#8220;We&#8217;re doing quite a lot now<br \/>\nbetween Nedbank and the rest of the businesses, and it is part<br \/>\nof the group.&#8221;<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* H1 pretax op. profit 791 mln pounds vs. 776 mln consensus * Repays 603 mln pounds debt in year to date * Eyeing move into Nigerian non-life insurance * Shares down 0.9 pct, underperforming sector LONDON, Aug 8 (Reuters) &#8211; Insurer Old Mutual reported a better-than-expected 12 percent rise in half-year profit, helped by [&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-13305","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\/13305","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=13305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}