Picture: THINKSTOCK
Business Day
INSURANCE-focused investment company Rand Merchant Insurance Holdings (RMI) has been an outperformer in its sector since listing in 2011 and analysts believe the stock will keep doing well as it offers entry to a diversity of quality insurance stocks and minimises the risk and volatility of holding one insurance company directly.
Unlisted insurer OUTsurance, part of RMI, is seen as a great anchor to RMI and is expected to deliver great results if it continues expanding its direct insurance offering abroad successfully.
JSE-listed RMI owns 25% of Discovery, 25% of MMI, 83% of OUTsurance and 76% of RMB-SI, which holds short-term and life insurance licences.
RMI listed at about R12 and its share price has done better than that of Discovery, MMI and even outperformed strong shares such as Sanlam for three years.
RMI’s shares have risen more than 200% since March 2011 to about R40, followed by Discovery, which has risen from about R38 in March 2011 to about R109 — about 180%.
MMI, which came about after a merger between Metropolitan and Momentum, has seen its share price grow by about 95% to about R29.70 compared to about R15 in March 2011.
RMI has even compared well with players such as Sanlam, which have been known for outperformance. Sanlam’s shares in the past three years have grown by just over 140% in the period under review to about R66 from about R27. Old Mutual has risen by about 120% to about R33.
Liberty’s share price in the period has grown by about 70% to about R120 and Santam just under 70% to about R214.
Commenting on the outperformance by RMI, Avior Research insurance analyst WJ de Vries said: "OUTsurance has been doing particularly well and when you are investing in RMI you get that exposure.
"It (RMI) gives you the best of all the innovative stocks. I don’t see it slowing down. I would expect it to start contributing a bigger share."
Out of the R3bn that RMI derived from its investments in the year ended June 2014 OUTsurance contributed R1.2bn in normalised earnings, while Discovery and MMI contributed R866m and R899m respectively. RMB-SI contributed R78m.
Analysts have pointed to the fact that OUTsurance’s offshore operations have performed well. OUTsurance operates through Youi in Australia and last year expanded to New Zealand. Youi generated R231m in headline earnings in the full year ended June 2014.
"The Australian market likes what they are doing. They are gaining traction there," Mr de Vries said.
Another Johannesburg-based analyst said OUTsurance had more room to grow in New Zealand.
"OUTsurance has demonstrated the ability to export their capability to the developed markets. I can’t think of any South African insurance company that has built an insurance company from scratch in a developed world. There is something in their DNA," the analyst said.
"I think there is a lot of future upside from OUTsurance and other businesses."
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