Old Mutual Raises Dividend 8% Despite 30% Earnings Fall

Old Mutual Limited (LON: OMU), the pan-African financial services group offering life insurance, banking, investments and general insurance, raised its interim dividend by 8% to 40 cents a share earlier today, even as adjusted headline earnings fell 30%. The board also approved a new R1bn share buyback.

Shares in Old Mutual traded at 59.53p in early dealing today, down 0.78% from yesterday’s close of 60.00p. The move is a snapshot from early trading rather than a confirmed reaction to the results.

Old Mutual’s unaudited results for the six months to 30 June 2026 showed results from operations per share, its preferred measure of underlying trading before investment-market swings, up 11% to 126.3 cents. Adjusted headline earnings, the group’s core profit gauge, dropped 30% to R2,951m from R4,204m a year earlier, while IFRS profit fell 5% to R3,889m. Management said the earnings decline stemmed from negative shareholder investment returns as Middle East conflicts drove risk-off conditions in markets, rather than any weakening in the underlying business.

That underlying business kept growing. Life APE sales and gross flows, standard measures of new insurance business written, both rose 21%, while the value of new business, the estimated future profit from policies sold in the period, climbed 32%. The group’s shareholder solvency ratio, a regulatory capital buffer, stood at 172%, which the company described as within its target range, supporting the dividend rise and buyback even as reported earnings fell.

Group equity value per share rose 4% to 2,066.1 cents, and normalised return on net asset value improved to 12.6% from 11.9% in the same period last year. Discretionary capital fell to R3.1bn from R6.1bn at the last financial year-end after the completion of a separate R3bn buyback.

The results are unaudited, as Old Mutual’s own statement makes clear, leaving the independent review still to come.