Momentum announced that its normalised headline earnings for the 2026 financial year reached R7.1 billion, up 12.8% from R6.3 billion, meeting the group’s profit target a full year ahead of schedule. The result matters most to shareholders and policyholders, who 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 segments named in the report include Momentum Retail, Momentum Corporate, Momentum Investments and Guardrisk. Metropolitan Life’s earnings also grew after a turnaround built on cost-cutting and digital transformation.
Chief executive Jeanette Marais said it was very positive that the group saw stronger operational performance across most business units, with market impacts playing a smaller role. She said the quality of earnings improved and that every business is profitable.
The insurer also noted a turnaround in its strategic partnership in India, a health insurance business, which contributed positively to earnings for the first time: a R22 million profit this year against a R67 million loss in the 2025 financial year. Marais said she expects exponential growth in that business in the coming years. Momentum’s India business is a health insurance partnership with the Aditya Birla Group.
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 the improved quality of earnings, with market impacts playing a smaller role, is worth noting.
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 earnings, is the same business line that came into the group through that 2010 deal.
