Medical scheme operator and financial services group Discovery Holdings expects both headline earnings per share (HEPS) and earnings per share (EPS) for the year to end-June to increase between 18% and 22%. HEPS would come in at 674c-697c and EPS at 667c-699c, Discovery said on Thursday. It said the main reason for the increase was that the previous year included one-off costs related to a UK acquisition and rebranding. As a result, the increase in normalised HEPS would be a more modest 5%-8%, to 710c-730c, based on an 8%-12% increase in normalised operating profit to R6.9bn-R7.2bn. In 2016, Discovery took over the VitalityHealth and VitalityLife insurance operations that it previously had operated in partnership with Prudential. In the year to end-June 2016, VitalityHealth’s operating profit declined 17% to R186m, hurt by a £5m expense associated with moving the business onto new systems. VitalityLife reported a 25% growth in profit to R678m. But record low interest rates at year-e...
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