OUTsurance officially joins the JSE

After months of anticipation, the OUTsurance Group listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) on Wednesday with the code OUT.

The Centurion-based insurer officially swapped places with its parent company, Rand Merchant Investment Holdings (RMI), which is no longer listed on the exchange as of 7 December. RMI has been preparing for this since 2021, when it started unbundling its stake in Momentum and Discovery to focus only on its short-term insurance investments. But it later sold its stake in UK tech-based insurer Hastings to concentrate solely on OUTsurance and its Australian sister company, Youi.

With only that investment in its portfolio and the big share price discounts that investment holding companies such as RMI have been battling with in recent years, it made sense to let OUTsurance take the spotlight, since operating companies’ share prices have fared better on the JSE.

After Wednesday’s listing, the two companies said shareholders would now own a stake in a company with an efficient and well-capitalised corporate structure. Other benefits they will reap from this listing swap include a cost-effective way to complete an initial public offering (IPO), a higher dividend payout ratio, and a phased reduction of the holding company and personnel costs at RMI until March 2023.

OUTsurance CEO, Marthinus Visser, said this represents a new and exciting chapter in OUTsurance’s history, and he and his team look forward to life ahead as a public company.

“I am incredibly proud of our team to have reached this milestone and would like to thank RMI/RMB for a brilliant 25-year partnership. We have an experienced team with a clear strategy, and we are leveraging our established track record and significant footprint to continue building and returning value to our clients, shareholders, staff, service providers and communities,” he said. – bbc.com