By Sfundo Parakozov
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South African pharmacy group Dis-Chem Pharmacies said at its conference call on Friday it will launch its insurance business, Dis-Chem Life in the first quarter of 2025.
The company which seeks to expand beyond being a pharmacy retailer acquired a 50% stake worth 155.9 million rand ($8.84 million) in the financial services provider and life insurer OneSpark in August this year.
OneSpark is a private company which offers life insurance and funeral cover whose expertise will significantly support Dis-Chem’s “vision of increasing access to quality healthcare at the lowest cost,” the company said in a statement.
“Our new life insurance partner, will use their proprietary technology and experience to bring novel insurance offerings to markets under the Dis-Chem life brand,” the group’s Chief Executive Officer Rui Morais said.
Dis-Chem will be competing with the country’s top insurers Discovery, Old Mutual, OUTsurance and Momentum which all posted positive results in September, although they expect volatile claims from clients either due to the newly signed Health Insurance Bill(NHI) or the Two-pot retirement system.
They remain cautiously optimistic as the country saw its first interest rate cut last month since more than four years and expects another cut next month.
Dis-Chem earlier said its headline earnings per share in the six months to Aug .31 grew by 16.3%, while group revenue rose by 9.6% to 19.6 billion rand.
It declared an interim dividend of 26.98.
($1 = 17.6302 rand)
(This story has been refiled to add the dopped word ‘expect,’ in paragraph 5)
(Reporting by Sfundo Parakozov; editing by Jason Neely and David Evans)
