Sanlam last week reported strong growth in its 2024 annual results.
The results showed the group’s earnings’ growth, shareholder value creation and new business was driven by its three growth pillars, namely South Africa, African economies and India.
The strong earnings’ growth, robust new business volumes and excellent investment returns underpin the increase in the Sanlam dividend declaration. In a statement, Sanlam said strong operational performance stemmed from continued support for the group’s businesses by customers.
The statement added that all the group’s businesses are currently enjoying good momentum, and economic conditions are improving in most markets in which the group operates. For this reason, the group is positive about the outlook for the 2025 financial year.
South Africa is hosting the G20 and B20 in 2025 on behalf of the African continent, and Sanlam supports this initiative and believes the growth focus brought by the G20 and B20, which will be influenced by Africa’s own economic characteristics, will add further impetus to growth prospects for the group’s businesses.
Meanwhile, the financials showed that operational earnings per share increased by 26%, the group’s Return on Equity (RoE) was 19.8% for 2024 (both of these figures excluding a one-off profit on closure of the Capitec relationship), and the dividend was increased by 11% to 445 cps.
Some of the financial highlights include return on the group’s equity value which was 20.3% per share, driven by strong new business value added and good experience variances across the life and general insurance lines.
Moreover, Sanlam’s new business volumes increased to R420 billion, driven by ongoing customer support for the group’s leading businesses in the markets in which the group operates. As such, dividends increased by 11% to 445 cents per share, delivering three year inflation-adjusted average growth of 4.5%.
Sanlam Group CEO Paul Hanratty said: “The group remains focused on excellent customer outcomes, and this means in most markets the group is the leading provider. This customer focus has underpinned our organic growth in 2024. Our strategic corporate activity has contributed to lifting the 2024 results, and we expect the contribution from this source to further enhance our performance in future periods.”
In 2023, the group announced the formation of a joint venture with Allianz to create the largest insurance group on the continent outside of South Africa. During 2024, Sanlam-Allianz made substantive progress in its first year of operation, completing several major integrations and delivering strong financial performance and growth. Sanlam transferred its Nambian business into the joint venture, and Allianz has decided to exercise their option to increase its shareholding in the joint venture to 49%.
Following Sanlam’s R6.6 billion acquisition of Assupol in September 2024, it started integrating Assupol fully into the group and in early 2025, the executive team of Assupol became part of Sanlam’s retail mass executive team.
The group has focused on preserving customer value, and is confident that during 2025, the integration of the business and its people will be complete. In February 2025, Sanlam announced an agreement to partner Fedhealth as its single open medical scheme provider.
This follows Sanlam’s investment in Afrocentric in May 2023 as part of the group’s strategy to provide a holistic and differentiated healthcare offering.