<\/p>\n
You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.<\/p>\n
JIMMY MOYAHA: Momentum Group Limited released their annual results for the financial year ended 30 June 2026 at 7:05 this morning. The business saw earnings increase by 11% to R6.6\u00a0billion. Normalised headline earnings are north of R7\u00a0billion rand, which is up 13%. The investment return for the business is up 40%.<\/p>\n
We are going to be taking a closer look at these numbers with the company\u2019s group chief executive officer, Jeanette Marais. She joins me on the line now to see what we make of their performance.<\/p>\n
Jeanette, lovely having you on the show, as always. Thanks so much for taking the time. Quite the year for the Momentum business \u2013 double-digit growth across almost all metrics, if we\u2019re looking at that.<\/p>\n
Dividend per share as well increased substantially, rewarding shareholders from that perspective.<\/p>\n
Take me through how you saw the year from a management perspective.<\/p>\n
JEANETTE MARAIS Thank you, Jimmy. What a great opportunity to talk to you today.<\/p>\n
Yes, if we can start with our normalised headline earnings of R7\u00a0billion \u2013 to put that in perspective, we are now two years into our three-year what we call \u2018impact strategy\u2019.<\/p>\n
When we launched to the market in 2024 that our projections were that as a group we could do R7\u00a0billion in earnings next year, June 2027, we actually were met with quite a lot of scepticism from the market saying, \u2018You\u2019re only doing three and a half now. How on earth do you think you\u2019re going to double that in three years?\u2019<\/p>\n
How phenomenal that we actually doubled our earnings in two years and that at the same time, this time around, we\u2019ve reached the R7\u00a0billion target a whole year ahead of when we planned to do it.<\/p>\n
ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n
And then every single one of our business units was profitable, which is not always the case.<\/p>\n
In a diversified group you sometimes have businesses that struggle while others do better. This time around every single one of our business units was profitable.<\/p>\n
We also have five businesses in our stable which all did more than a billion rand in earnings this year.<\/p>\n
That perspective is simply that we thought we might end up with four of them by June next year \u2013 and here we have five businesses that have each delivered more than a billion in earnings.<\/p>\n
So really a good day for us and I think a good day for our shareholders as well.<\/p>\n
JIMMY MOYAHA: Jeanette, what was the secret from a business perspective? Operating across Retail, Investment, Momentum Life, Momentum Corporate, Momentum Insure, Momentum Health you\u2019re in myriad financial services and spreading your risk across those financial services \u2013 spreading your team and your balance sheet across those services.<\/p>\n
What was the secret to all of the divisions coming to the party and doing well in their own rights, and subsequently allowing the group to do well?<\/p>\n
JEANETTE MARAIS Jimmy, I\u2019m going to give you an unexpected answer, because I\u2019m sure you\u2019re expecting me to go through these businesses and tell you what they\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to tell you where I think it has come from.<\/p>\n
That is that when we started with our impact strategy our businesses were all in different places. So there were different journeys for different businesses. Some had to focus on turnaround plans and others were already successful and we expected them to grow.<\/p>\n
But do you know what we did as an executive team?<\/p>\n
We sat back and said: \u2018The first thing we need to do is we need to define our purpose. Why is Momentum here? Our purpose is to build and protect our clients\u2019 financial dreams.\u2019<\/p>\n
Then we sat down and said: \u2018Now let\u2019s formulate our strategy, because we know where we\u2019re going, but what do we now want to achieve? How do we think we\u2019re going to achieve that?\u2019<\/p>\n
And then, thirdly, we sat down and defined our strategic behaviours that will help our people live our purpose and deliver on our strategy.<\/p>\n
ADVERTISEMENT:<\/p>\n
CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n
I know that\u2019s an unusual answer, but I believe the power we unleashed when we got more than 10 000 people to focus on why we are here \u2013 and not chasing a target \u2013 has created an enormous shift in energy in our business which I have not seen in the previous eight years that I\u2019ve spent at this group.<\/p>\n
So I truly believe that we have turned the business around from within by focusing on why we\u2019re here, and not what it is that we need to deliver.<\/p>\n
The amazing thing with purpose-driven organisations is that when you start to focus on your clients, when you start to focus on how you can do things better, you actually achieve the kind of growth that we\u2019ve achieved.<\/p>\n
JIMMY MOYAHA: Jeanette, before I let you go, I want to take a look at what this now means for the business. The business now is able to step into a new phase from a strategic point of view, an acquisition phase, an expansionary phase, a phase that allows for exponential growth.<\/p>\n
Take me through what that looks like from your perspective as the business moves into that era.<\/p>\n
JEANETTE MARAIS: Jimmy, we also fully understand that in an economy that\u2019s not growing, to keep on growing your earnings at 13% \u2013 what is it, 10%, more than 10% more than the economy is giving you \u2013 you also need to think about other ways of growing.<\/p>\n
And acquisitions in this market, when you have the capital \u2013 which we do \u2013 just open up so many opportunities for you.<\/p>\n
So across our business, in the space of distribution, we want to grow our distribution footprint. We\u2019re looking at some acquisitions in that space that will help us to actually grow faster than just recruiting one advisor after the other.<\/p>\n
And then there are many other opportunities. In the Guardrisk space, we often come across smaller bolt-on transactions because those clients are already clients of Guardrisk and they want out, and that opens up opportunities for us.<\/p>\n
So let me say this, we are always looking at opportunities.<\/p>\n
But of course when you do acquisitions you\u2019ve got to be very disciplined about the internal rate of return, and you can\u2019t just buy or get what I call \u2018deal fever\u2019 and buy anything at any price, because then you will never see the return on it.<\/p>\n
Really what you [consider] is do you invest in your own business \u2013 does that give you better growth? Do you turn the money over to your shareholders through dividends or share buybacks? Or can you generate more growth for your clients by making good, clever acquisitions at the right price?<\/p>\n
Certainly at the moment we\u2019re looking at all three and we\u2019re very open-minded to see where the best opportunities are.<\/p>\n
JIMMY MOYAHA: Jeanette, are you looking beyond the borders of South Africa at the moment? Is that something that\u2019s in line with the Momentum strategy?<\/p>\n
ADVERTISEMENT:<\/p>\n
CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n
JEANETTE MARAIS Yes, we certainly are.<\/p>\n
Over the last while we\u2019ve actually been buying stakes in small advisor businesses around the UK, Ireland, and in Latin America.<\/p>\n
There you do it because you have advisor groups who then look for someone to manage their assets. It\u2019s a way in which you actually secure the assets. That\u2019s been a small focus for us. We\u2019re dipping our toes into it, but we\u2019ve done that with great success.<\/p>\n
But the more exciting opportunity for us is we\u2019ve actually been in a partnership with Aditya Birla, which is one of the biggest conglomerate firms in India and across the world.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re in a JV partnership there on a medical health insurance company. That business has now gone to break-even point for the very first time \u2013 which we are very excited about.<\/p>\n
Over the 10 years we\u2019ve invested more than R3\u00a0billion of our capital into growing that market. But to put that in perspective, India has more than 1.3 billion people. That business is the second-fastest growing life insurer in India.<\/p>\n
We have more than 24\u00a0million clients in India already, and we\u2019re adding about 100\u00a0000 new policies, health insurance policies, on our books through the India JV at the moment.<\/p>\n
So we are very excited about the opportunity that is opening up for us in the India market.<\/p>\n
And of course, now that we\u2019re there with a very strong partner, it opens the opportunity to take some of our other business capabilities into the Indian market as well.<\/p>\n
So our growth focus for the future is how to strengthen our South African businesses, making them stronger, capitalising them, helping them with bolt-on transactions. But at the same time, how do we grow that Indian opportunity for ourselves?<\/p>\n
JIMMY MOYAHA: A business clearly focused on executing its growth strategy and allowing for that growth strategy to benefit its shareholders and investors in turn.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll have to leave this conversation on that note. All the best to you, Jeanette, and the team on the new financial year. We look forward to seeing how this growth turns out.<\/p>\n
Momentum Group Limited chief executive officer Jeanette Marais joined us to take a look at the numbers from their previous financial year \u2013 and how the business fared.<\/p>\n
#Momentum #credits #strategy #stronger #earnings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here. JIMMY MOYAHA: Momentum Group Limited…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[7062,1308,4279,127,1642],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16334"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16334\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}