Malabie appointed to lead Charter Life into the em
Malabie appointed to lead Charter Life into the emerging middle-class market
January 26, 2004
By Edward West
Cape Town - Liberty Group has appointed Bobby Malabie as the new managing director of Charter Life, effective from next month, to use his experience of the consumer market to help the group launch its smallest subsidiary into the emerging middle-class market.
This is new territory because Liberty has traditionally focused its life assurance business at the top end of the market.
The market Charter Life will be targeting, according to Peter Laburn, the managing director of insurance operations at Liberty, is the LSM 5 to 8 segment. The emerging black middle class will form a backbone of the strategy.
Charter previously was Liberty's bancassurance subsidiary, but Liberty was already a long way down the road of splitting Charter's existing business, some for its bancassurance partner and parent, Standard Bank, while some clients have been directed towards Liberty Group.
Charter's new recurring and single premium business came to R495 million and R1.38 billion respectively in the year to February 2003, while for Liberty as a whole it was R7.86 billion and R8.56 billion over the same period.
Laburn said the strategy for Charter Life was not one of maintenance, nor was it to grow acquisitively.
"Charter Life has stacks of opportunities ... it could be an ideal empowerment vehicle going forward, but there is nothing on the boards yet."
Malabie joins Charter Life from Nedcor, where he was a divisional director. Before this he spent five years at SA Breweries and eight years at Unilever.
"His intimate knowledge of consumer markets that Charter Life intends targeting, together with his banking experience in this market, will add a new dimension to our business," said Laburn.
Malabie said he was "very excited about the opportunity".
Last week Liberty told its shareholders embedded value a share - a key indicator of an insurer's worth, measuring a firm's basic worth plus its prospects for profitability - was expected to be higher at year-end than the value reported at June 2003 of R53.42 a share.
But Liberty warned shareholders that 2003 headline earnings a share were expected to fall by between 10 percent and 15 percent, in spite of an improvement in investment returns.
It said new business margins were maintained, net cash flow from operations remained strong and costs had been cut.
The group has undergone many management and board changes following the 46 percent slide in earnings to R1.30 a share in the six months to June last year and the 28.7 percent decline in headline earnings to R3.915 a share at the end of the previous financial year.
Liberty Groupadded 50c to close at R55.80 on Friday.
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