NEWS ANALYSIS: Old Mutual no longer the top dog
Once the gold standard in life and investments, Old Mutual is struggling to regain its place among its peers
Many top investors such as Allan Gray, Coronation and even Sanlam have chunky holdings in Old Mutual shares, in all cases overwhelmingly bigger than their other life holdings, and usually their biggest bank positions. The Old Mutual holding has proved frustrating as the share has fallen 20% from its 12-month high. This certainly wasn’t in the script when Old Mutual CEO Bruce Hemphill announced the managed separation of the business into four parts.Whatever analysts may think of Hemphill’s time as boss of Liberty, he did make the changes he really cared about, such as the creation of Liberty Financial Services as an in-house merchant bank. Mutual’s finance director, Ingrid Johnson, arguably has an even better reputation for implementing change after her time as head of the troubled retail and business banking division at Nedbank. The fund management houses should push for a palace coup, with Johnson ousting her boss. That would get the share price to change direction. Johnson believe...
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