Old Mutual Share Discussion Threads

[broadwood] 27/8/2014 13:48

http://www.fool.co.uk/investing/2014/08/27/3-dirt-cheap-insurance-stocks-legal-general-group-plc-old-mutual-plc-prudential-plc/

[2ngh] 07/8/2014 11:00

African Bank two day plunge hurting sentiment maybe?

[broadwood] 05/8/2014 10:53

Shares in Old Mutual made gains early on Tuesday after the financial services group's South African banking subsidiary reported a big increase in profits for the first half.

Nedbank, in which Old Mutual owns a 52% stake, saw headline earnings rise by 17.5% to 4.599bn rand (£256m) in the six months to 30 June, with diluted earnings per share up 16.1% at 965 cents.

The company said that results were helped by good net interest income (NII) growth and a "substantial improvement" in impairments, which fell nearly 30% year-on-year.

Nedbank lifted its interim dividend by 17.9% to 460 cents per share.

"In a deteriorating economic environment the outcomes arising from our strategic choices enabled Nedbank to produce strong growth in diluted headline earnings per share for the six months to June," said Nedbank's chief executive Mike Brown.

He said its full-year guidance for organic earnings growth this year greater than economic growth remains unchanged "in volatile and slowing economic environment".

[peterbill] 03/6/2014 20:03

Divi payment day .. Payment date .. 30 May 2014

I've just transferred my shares from Selftrade to Youinvest .... hopefully the divi will follow suit.

[outlaw8] 17/3/2014 14:05

Bought Intrinsic , great move.

[broadwood] 28/2/2014 08:23

Nice rise - so far.

[broadwood] 28/2/2014 07:57

Julian Roberts, Group CEO, said:

"I am delighted with the way Old Mutual has performed this year notwithstanding the volatility of the rand, with double digit growth in each of our main businesses. We have seen positive net client cash flows into all of our businesses totalling £15.5 billion which is testament to our attractive customer propositions.

"We are making excellent progress against our strategic objectives. We are growing in South Africa, with more than 750,000 new Old Mutual and Nedbank customers. We have taken significant steps in our goal of becoming Africa's financial services champion, with new businesses in East and West Africa and nearly 600,000 new customers.

"I am excited about the prospects of Old Mutual Wealth which, with the acquisition of Intrinsic and our strengthened asset management capability, now has the foundations to become the leading retail investment business in the UK. We have announced today that we intend to proceed with a minority IPO of US Asset Management in 2014, subject to market conditions.

"We have a clear strategy and clear priorities which we are focused on achieving. While the external environment is likely to remain uncertain, and in particular the impact of the movement of the rand on our reported results, we believe that the long-term structural growth trends in Africa and strong demand for banking, protection and savings products remain intact and will continue to drive sustainable and profitable growth for Old Mutual."
-

[capercaillie] 28/2/2014 07:22

Another solid set of figures. Increased dividend well covered.

[broadwood] 28/2/2014 07:20

Plenty to wade through.

IPO of US arm proceeding. Will shareholders get a discount?

[peterbill] 24/2/2014 14:19

Exchange rate? Rand weak ...

[maurillac] 30/1/2014 09:00

sp at 174. what happened here then, or didnt happen ?
m

[the juggler] 08/11/2013 19:05

Hopefully the will break up through that 205p resistance, once the market starts it Xmas rally. It won't take lot IMHO.

[broadwood] 08/11/2013 16:14

Old Mutual's Group Operating Officer, Paul Hanratty, revealed positive signs in South Africa whilst speaking at an event hosted by Barclays on Thursday evening.

In that regard, shareholders can expect to begin to see value appear from its operations in the rest of Africa within the next five years, Hanratty said.

The group revealed that the goal to double earnings from UK operations to £300m by 2015 is looking very achievable.

The initial public offering (IPO) of its US asset management business is on track, the company went on to say, with the proceeds to be deployed to pay down debt.

"The US asset management business has now seen three consecutive quarters of net inflows, the main metric that the business had to show making progress in order to have the option to IPO," the broker explained.

The IPO has been speculated upon for some time now, but Hanratty gave a very clear message that the IPO is not only being considered, but that the time to make a decision on it is now approaching, Barclays said.

Barclays opted to retain their overweight rating on the stock.

[broadwood] 06/11/2013 08:21

Steady climb?

[broadwood] 06/11/2013 07:15

Looking good.

Our strong momentum continued with a third consecutive quarter of positive net client cash flow in all our businesses.

"Gross sales in Emerging Markets continue to be healthy and Old Mutual Wealth saw a large rise in gross sales on the UK platform and in Old Mutual Global Investors. US Asset Management produced positive cash flows of GBP1.5 billion and Nedbank improved its operational performance.

"We remain confident that our strategy and our geographic focus underpinned by our financial discipline leaves us well positioned for future growth

[longwell] 27/10/2013 22:04

next stop is 2.30 by jan.

[the juggler] 21/10/2013 10:18

Had a few of these this morning. Reasonable management, further to go.

[phoenix1234] 21/8/2013 10:59

Old Mutual: at 194p the shares look good value after a 12% share price fall

[donkel] 15/8/2013 11:15

Old Mutual OML Goldman Sachs Buy 199.40p 226.00p 226.00p Reiteration

[broadwood] 15/8/2013 07:19

Morgan Cazenove Old Mutual PLC 15/08/2013
Upgrades
Neutral Overweight 2 215.00 228.00 198.00 13 2

[donkel] 07/8/2013 09:39

Great growth potential here and ever expanding dividend.

[broadwood] 07/8/2013 08:02

Bought some at the off.

[buywell2] 04/7/2013 07:40

House insurance issues could be many and varied due to this , from water damage to fire to roof damage and repair and replacement costs of panels to name but few.

Insurers of the installation companies and panel suppliers could also get hit BIG








................. SOLAR PANELS , :- Have you been fitted up ? .............




A lot of these panels from China have been installed in the UK

I think many will be defective after 3 years , more after 5 years , most after 10 years ..... 25 years guarantee was and is a pipedream.

That is due to production issues

Then there are issues to do with using contractors to install them on your roof, leaks from same should start to show damage re water ingress after circa 2 years of installation ..... contractors who are taken on for 6 or 12 month contracts take short cuts to get the job done and away.

Bodge jobs with temp waterproof filler/mastic round drilled holes to attach the panel support brackets to the roof trusses will be many.


Next Shoe To Drop: Shoddy Solar Panels From China



Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter

The photovoltaic industry is in a perverse situation. To make power generation from solar competitive, prices of solar panels had to come down. Tens of billions in subsidies were plowed into the industry. Technological advances came along. And the price per watt crashed exponentially, from $76 in 1977 to about $7 in 1989. Then it leveled off. By 2000 it began to drop again, hit $4 in 2005, $2 in 2010, and a forecast $0.74 per watt in 2013 (graph).

But it wreaked havoc. Business models collapsed. Funding dried up. PV companies bled red ink. In the US, a slew of them, including Solyndra, went bankrupt. Others shut down or changed course. Tens of billions in taxpayer subsidies and investor capital spiraled down the drain.

In Germany, solar power was a political priority. They don't have much sun, but they have more sun than oil, the logic went. Now even Bosch Solar Energy AG is fleeing the business after burning through $3.1 billion. Same story in France, in Spain. Bloodletting everywhere. They all blamed the low prices of Chinese solar panels. Complaints that led to anti-dumping proceedings in the US and aggravated the trade war between the EU and China [my take: Germany Fires Salvo In Sino-European Trade War ... At Brussels].

But solar power generators, from utilities with large-scale installations to farmers with solar panels on their barns, were ecstatic about the low prices. They enjoyed subsidies, nearly free financing, and the hope that the system would more than pay for itself over the course of its 25-year life span. It would be a good deal.

But it might not be. The price war that Chinese manufacturers waged was a suicide mission. Now even they're going bankrupt, including their erstwhile number one, Wuxi Suntech, when the banks pulled the ripcord in March. Existentially threatened, they cut costs ... and corners.

Defective solar panels can be costly. The New York Times described what happened to the PV installation on a warehouse roof in Southern California whose promise of a 25-year life span disintegrated along with the protective coatings on the panels after only two years, and part of it went up in smoke when defects caused two fires.

"Worldwide, testing labs, developers, financiers, and insurers are reporting similar problems and say the $77 billion solar industry is facing a quality crisis," the Times reported. But instead of tracking defects industry-wide, manufacturers hide behind confidentiality agreements that treat their name as a secret. So no one knows the extent of the crisis. And it's just the beginning: since nearly half of the 7.2 gigawatts of capacity in the US were installed in 2012 in a burst of incentive-fueled activity, most of the problems have not yet come to light. But some have:

Executives at companies that inspect Chinese factories on behalf of developers and financiers said that over the last 18 months they have found that even the most reputable companies are substituting cheaper, untested materials. Other brand-name manufacturers, they said, have shut down production lines and subcontracted the assembly of modules to smaller makers.
STS Certified, a French testing service, evaluated 215,000 PV modules at its Shanghai laboratory and found that defects had jumped from 7.8% in 2011 to 13% in 2012. An entire batch from one manufacturer was defective, but STS refused to identify the culprit – a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange – due to the confidentiality agreements.

German solar monitoring firm Meteocontrol found that 80% of the installations in Europe it had examined were underperforming. SolarBuyer, based in Massachusetts, audited 50 Chinese plants over 18 months; defect rates ranged from 5.5% to a dizzying 22%. During repeat audits, it found that plants were constantly substituting cheaper materials. Ian Gregory, SolarBuyer's senior marketing director, warned: "If the materials aren't good or haven't been thoroughly tested, they won't stick together, and the solar module will eventually fall apart in the field."

Even Chinese insiders admit it: "There are a lot of shortcuts being taken, and unfortunately it's by some of the more reputable companies, and there's also been lot of new companies starting up in recent years without the same standards we've had at Suntech," lamented Chief Technology Officer Stuart Wenham – the same Suntech that was pushed into bankruptcy in March.

There are still some lucky solar developers and installers who claim that they haven't run into quality problems yet on systems installed in 2012. But they're brand-new, with 24 more years to go. And some of the defective panels weren't made in China; all manufacturers are under pressure to cut corners in order to survive. First Solar, a US company, has reserved $271 million to account for the expense of replacing defective modules sold in 2008 and 2009. No word yet of those sold during the binge of 2012.

The costs of these defects will eat further into the industry that is struggling to become financially viable. Yet, in a cruel twist, the price of solar panels must continue to drop for solar power to be competitive without subsidies. Taxpayers, stung by austerity in Europe and by the sequester in the US, are already less than enthusiastic about propping up the industry forever. At some point, it must be able to stand on its own, at still lower prices that magically allow manufacturers, and not only power generators, to thrive – an illusion, for now. But waves of "cheap" solar panels that suddenly become very expensive after they're installed will cause more bloodletting and push the propitious date further into the future.