Despite the worsening Covid-19 pandemic, the South African holding company Discovery has reported satisfactory progress. This performance was driven in particular by the various insurance branches of the group.
At the end of the fourth quarter of 2020 results released Thursday, February 25, Discovery Insure rose 43% to 107 million rand (7.4 million dollars). VitalityHealth and VitalityLife, meanwhile, rose 24% to R1313 million ($ 42.5 million) and 206% to R327 million ($ 22.6 million) respectively.
Vitality Group rose 116% to R38 million ($ 2.6 million) while Discovery Invest fell 3% to R471 million ($ 32.6 million). Meanwhile, profit for the period fell 10% to 1.9 billion rand ($ 131.7 million) as well as net earnings per share by 10% to 280.3 cents per share.
Regarding the group’s gross income, it rose 9% to 34.9 billion rand (2.4 million dollars).
Due to the uncertain and potentially volatile economic environment caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, Discovery has not declared an interim common stock dividend. However, the bank has argued it is considering reintroducing dividends if appropriate.
Launched in 2019, Discovery bank has more than 287,000 clients to its credit with more than 540,000 bank accounts.
