Momentum announced that its normalised headline earnings for the 2026 financial year reached R7 billion, meeting the group’s profit target a full year ahead of schedule. The result matters most to shareholders, policyholders and the company’s roughly 150 employees in its India operation, all of whom watch dividend payouts and pricing decisions closely.
Normalised headline earnings are a measure of profit that strips out one-off items such as asset sales or extraordinary tax effects, giving a clearer view of ongoing performance. In this case the figure translates into a basic earnings per share (profit per share before any adjustments) of 516.2 cents and a diluted earnings per share (profit per share after accounting for potential new shares) of 499.5 cents.
Five of Momentum’s business segments each posted earnings above R1 billion. The long-standing earners Momentum Retail and Momentum Corporate were joined by Metropolitan Life, which benefitted from a cost-cutting and digital-transformation plan, as well as Momentum Investments and Guardrisk, both of which crossed the R1 billion threshold for the first time.
Chief executive Jeanette Marais said the group’s earnings “exceeded expectations” and that “every single business is profitable”. She added that market impacts played a smaller role in profitability than anticipated, highlighting the improved quality of earnings.
The insurer also noted a turnaround in its India partnership, which moved from a R67 million loss in the 2025 financial year to a R22 million profit this year, contributing to the overall earnings boost. Momentum India, founded in 2015, now employs about 150 staff and offers integrated risk-management services.
Momentum declared a final dividend of 120 cents per share, bringing the full-year dividend to 230 cents, a 31% rise on the prior year. The payout reflects the stronger earnings and provides a tangible benefit to shareholders.
Looking ahead, Marais warned that South African households are still feeling the squeeze of high living costs, which could curb new-business sales. She said the group will sharpen its focus on value of new business (VNB), the profit generated by new policies, and aim to grow sales volumes and market share in profitable products.
The insurer is now in the early stages of its next strategic planning cycle and plans to publish its F2030 roadmap within the next twelve months. For businesses and consumers watching the insurance market, the results suggest a healthier balance sheet for Momentum, but also signal that price pressures may remain as the company seeks growth in a cost-constrained environment.
Read more about Momentum’s performance on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the original report from BusinessTech. For further analysis of insurance trends, visit our Retail & Consumer section.
Where Momentum sits among SA insurers
Momentum Group is one of South Africa’s four major listed life insurers, alongside Old Mutual, Sanlam and Discovery, all of which compete for the same pool of retail and corporate policyholders on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. A profit target hit a year early is a meaningful signal in that context because life insurers set multi-year targets precisely because premium income and investment returns are volatile from one reporting period to the next; beating a target early usually reflects either unusually strong markets, tighter cost control, or both, which is why Marais’s comment on quality of earnings rather than market luck is the detail analysts will scrutinise most closely in the full results presentation.
Momentum’s own listing history
Momentum Group’s current form traces back to a 2010 merger between Momentum, then part of FirstRand, and Metropolitan Life, creating MMI Holdings before the group rebranded to Momentum Metropolitan and later simply Momentum. That merger history is relevant context for a earnings-and-segments story like this one: Metropolitan Life’s strong performance this year, cited as a factor in the record earnings, is the same business line that came into the group through that 2010 deal, meaning its turnaround reflects more than a decade of integration work rather than a newly acquired unit finding its feet.
