Johannesburg- Old Mutual has just released its set of financial results for the year ended December 2025. The company was founded in Cape Town in 1845, four years before California became a US state and more than a century before most African nations achieved independence. 

That kind of longevity is rare anywhere in the world, and it is the quiet backdrop to a set of 2025 results that tell a story far more interesting than when the headline numbers meets the eye.

Across the fourteen African countries where Old Mutual operates, from Ghana in the west to Kenya in the east, Namibia in the south and Rwanda in the centre, the group is navigating a continent that is simultaneously its greatest opportunity and its most persistent challenge. 

The Africa Regions cluster, which covers all markets outside South Africa, saw its contribution to adjusted headline earnings reach R2.1 billion in 2025, up from R1.7 billion.

That is an impeessive growth before ome looks at the underlying drivers. A significant portion of those elevated earnings came from Malawi, where hyperinflation and a shortage of foreign currency artificially inflated local-currency returns. 

Old Mutual estimates that if the Malawian kwacha were devalued by between 30% and 50% to reflect its real purchasing power, which is what most economists believe the currency requires, the group's overall earnings growth would have been 7% to 9% rather than the reported 13%.

That is an honest and important disclosure. The broader picture is that adjusted headline earnings for the group rose 24% to R8.3 billion, results from operations grew 13% to R9.8 billion, and dividends per share grew 8.1% to 93 cents, all solid numbers for a business of this scale. 

The return on net asset value climbed to 15.2% from 12.7%, comfortably within the group's target range of 14% to 16%. Old Mutual has 15.1 million customers across its footprint served through 39,578 tied and independent intermediaries and 884 retail branches, making it one of the most physically distributed financial services businesses on the continent by some distance.

What is strategically significant about these results is what the company is doing with its balance sheet and its operating model at precisely the moment when African digital financial services is becoming genuinely competitive.

Old Mutual launched OM Bank in 2025, bringing together R1.3 billion in deposits, R15.1 billion in loans and advances, a 360-branch network, and this is the detail that matters, the largest network of FAIS-accredited financial advisers in South Africa. 

The banking bet is goest beyond building a digital-only challenger bank from scratch, which is what Discovery Bank and TymeBank have done. 

For old mutual it is about leveraging an existing mass market physical distribution network and converting those relationships into banking customers at a fraction of the customer acquisition cost that pure digital players face. That is a structurally different and potentially more durable approach in markets where physical trust remains a critical factor in financial decision-making.

The company is in the middle of a significant cost-cutting programme targeting R2.5 billion in savings by 2027, has already delivered R450 million of that commitment, and spent R440 million on restructuring in 2025 alone. That restructuring cost is a one-off investment in a leaner organisation, and the company is also running a R3 billion share buyback while maintaining a solvency ratio of 162%, which means it has far more capital than regulators require. 

A financially strong insurer holding excess capital in a stable solvency position is important for policyholders because it means claims-paying ability is not under pressure even in adverse market conditions.

The value of new business margin fell from 2.5% to 1.2%, well below the 2% to 3% target range, largely because Old Mutual strengthened its persistency assumptions, meaning it now expects more policyholders to cancel their policies before maturity than it previously assumed. 

Across Africa, policy lapse rates are a persistent structural problem that reflects the financial fragility of the mass market customer base. When household incomes are squeezed by inflation or unemployment, insurance premiums are typically among the first commitments to be dropped. 

The company also reported that it excludes Zimbabwe's results from its key performance indicators entirely, citing barriers to accessing capital through dividends. That is a significant disclosure. Old Mutual has operated in Zimbabwe since the late 1800s and the business there is substantial by local standards, yet the parent group cannot practically access its share of the profits. Zimbabwe's foreign currency restrictions mean that earnings generated locally cannot be remitted in hard currency at commercial rates, making Zimbabwe essentially a stranded asset from a group cash flow perspective despite being a meaningful business in its own right.

Old Mutual's experience in Malawi and Zimbabwe together illustrate one of the most important barriers to attracting and retaining long-term institutional capital on the continent. Currency convertibility and the ability of foreign investors to repatriate returns are the reason a company with 180 years of commitment to the continent is forced to exclude entire countries from its KPIs and must caveat the earnings of others with hypothetical devaluation scenarios.

Until that constraint is resolved in more markets, the growth in formal financial services that African economies need will remain slower and more expensive than it should be. 

Old Mutual is a company at the intersection of Africa's past and its financial future, and the 2025 results reflect both the endurance that comes with 180 years of institutional presence and the genuine difficulty of converting that presence into consistently growing returns across a continent where the macroeconomic environment does not always cooperate.