Momentum Group has had a strong start to the 2025 financial year, with assets under administration for Momentum Wealth rising 17%.
The group’s sales, measured by the present value of new business premiums (PVNBP) for the three months to end-September, increased by 5% to R20.7bn, supported by steady growth in life annuities new business volumes from Momentum Investments, it said in a statement on Wednesday.
Africa’s PVNBP improved by 25%, following “good retail sales growth” in Namibia and Botswana and higher corporate sales in Lesotho.
While Momentum Retail’s sales volumes were flat, the new business mix shifted towards higher-margin protection products.
There was a marginal decline in Metropolitan Life’s sales volumes and Momentum Corporate experienced lower single premium sales volumes over the quarter.
The group’s value of new business (VNB) improved from the prior period, with support from the shift in new business volumes towards higher-margin products across many of the business units.
Recurring premiums grew by 8% to R1.07bn, with single premiums up 3% at R15.68bn.
Assets under administration for Momentum Wealth rose to R280bn from R240bn.
“The positive impetus highlighted in the year-end results continued into the first quarter of the 2025 financial year. The group’s operational performance was supported by the satisfactory new business performance of most business units,” the group said.
“From an earnings perspective, most business units continued to deliver encouraging results. The favourable moves in key economic indicators are starting to reflect in our business experience, it is, however, too soon to indicate a significant change,” it said.
The group said it made progress with Metropolitan Life and Momentum Insure, where turnaround strategies were in place to address underperformance. This has resulted in enhanced product commerciality and higher quality of new business in Metropolitan Life.
In Momentum Insure, disciplined management of underwriting, aided by a favourable claims environment, led to an improved claims ratio.
Curate Investments, the group’s new vertically integrated single-manager business offering a range of local and global unit trusts, was launched in August.
The partnership in India, Aditya Birla Health Insurance, continued to “grow strongly”, with increased attention on improving the combined ratio, Momentum said.
“We are encouraged by the new business sales performance the Momentum Group achieved over the period,” it said.
The operating environment remained challenging, but Momentum is cautiously optimistic about the early indications of economic recovery in SA with inflation easing and the start of the interest rate reduction cycle alleviating the pressure on disposable income.
It will continue to focus on driving sales volumes and providing innovative solutions to improve VNB outcomes, it said.
“We also believe that the impact strategy financial ambitions for [fiscal] 2027 (normalised headline earnings of R7bn, ROE of 20% and VNB margin of 1%-2%) remain achievable,” it said.
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