Old Mutual Swung to 1st Half Net Loss; Suspends Dividend

By Ian Walker

Old Mutual Ltd. on Tuesday reported a swing to net loss for the first half of the year and suspended its dividend payout due to the coronavirus pandemic, but said its liquidity levels remain positive and solvency ratio within its targeted range.

The South Africa-based, financial-services company added that it has withdrawn its previous guidance targets and replaced them with new ones to reflect the pressure on revenues from the pandemic. The group expects to deliver 750 million South African Rand ($44.3 million) of pretax run rate savings by the end of 2022, it said.

Net loss for the half year was ZAR5.62 billion compared with a profit of ZAR5.82 billion. Headline earnings--one of the company's preferred metrics which strips out exceptional and other one-off items--was ZAR4.22 billion compared with ZAR5.85 billion for the first half of 2019.

The group's solvency ratio--a measure of financial stability--was 182% compared with 189%.

Old Mutual said it will review its full-year dividend payout when there's "more clarity on the shape of possible economic recovery scenarios."

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 01, 2020 01:46 ET (05:46 GMT)

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