August 20 - Despite poor economic conditions, life assurer Clientele
managed to post higher earnings in its financial report issued on Monday.
The group showed a rise of 8% in diluted headline earnings per share. This
means that earnings rose from 41.21c to 44.52c for the year that ended in June
2009.
Dividends also performed well, with prices per share growing 8% from 39c to
42c.
Clientele was able to show a return on average shareholders' interest of 57%
on embedded value of 62%.
This is despite that Clientele commented on the recession in South Africa and
said that it was a year of turmoil for financial markets around the world.
"Although production volumes have been impacted by the state of the economy
this has been countered by improved new business profit margins which have
increased from 21% last year to 24% this year and enhanced premium collections
management resulting in improved lapse experience this year in South Africa,"
said the group.
Some of Clientele's newly established businesses, such as Clientele Legal and
Clientele Loans Direct, completed their first full year of of operations cycle
in June.
"The Value of New Business has increased from R320.6 million for last year,
to R420 million this year," said the report. "The Embedded Value (EV) has
increased from R1.06 billion (after adjusting dividends and related STC) to
R1.72 billion at June 2009."
Clientele said that it hopes to move from being just a life insurance company
to being a financial services group in the future.
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