FINANCIAL SERVICES
Why Liberty’s interims show little progress
Margins have been diminishing across Liberty’s business units for some time
Former Liberty CEO Thabo Dloti’s final set of results shows that the insurer managed to only marginally narrow its earnings decline during the six months to the end of June from its infamous full-year 2016 period. Liberty posted normalised earnings 30% down to R1.3bn in its half-year results, which new CEO David Munro — who has held the job for just over two months, one of which was covered by the latest results — presented on Friday. This compares with a 39% earnings decline at the end of December. Shareholders did not like the results, sending the share 6.06% down by the close on Friday. "Our challenge in these results is the decline in value of new business to R80m and that’s what we need to make sure we improve in the second half and in 2018," Munro said. He is former head of corporate and investment banking at Liberty parent Standard Bank.
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