Old Mutual PLC - Introduction

Introduction

Old Mutual Pl., 2 Lambeth Hill
London
EC4V 4GG
United Kingdom
Telephone: 44 20 7002 7000
Fax: 44 20 7002 7200
Web site: http://www.oldmutual.com

Public Company
Incorporated:
Employees: 46,462
Total Assets: £37 billion (2003)
Stock Exchanges: Johannesburg London Frankfurt
Ticker Symbol: OML.L
NAIC: 522110 Commercial Banking; 524113 Direct Life Insurance Carriers; 524114 Direct Health and Medical Insurance Carriers; 551112 Offices of Other Holding Companies

Old Mutual PLC has shrugged off nearly 150 years as an almost exclusively South African financial services business, emerging as a major up-and-comer on the international market. Demutualized in 1999, Old Mutual has switched its headquarters to London in order to be able to join the FTSE 100—the company is valued at more than £5 billion ($8 billion) and has more than £134 billion ($214 billion) in assets under its management. In less than five years, Old Mutual has successfully shifted its geographic mix—by 2003 just 60 percent of the group's business came from South Africa, while the United States contributed 30 percent, and the United Kingdom 10 percent. The company intends to continue to re-balance its operations so that its business is divided equally among these three primary markets. Concurrent with its geographic expansion, Old Mutual also has moved to reinvent itself as a major assets gathering and assets management group. In South Africa, the group's operations are based around a core of Old Mutual (South Africa), the largest provider of financial services, including insurance products, in the country; a majority shareholding in the country's leading domestic bank, Nedcor; and Mutual & Federal, a leading South African general insurer. In the United States, the company has gained a position among the industry's top ten by building a multistyle asset management operation through an aggressive, multibillion-dollar acquisition drive. The group's main U.S. operations include US Asset Management, a grouping of 23 affiliated asset management companies; and US Life, which generates more than $4 billion in new business each year. The company's holdings in the United Kingdom, which included Gerrard, a leading private client broking business until its sale in December 2003, are focused around Old Mutual Financial Services, a major U.K. assets management firm. Old Mutual expects to continue its international acquisition campaign into the middle of the decade as it refines the scope and scale of its operation. The company is listed on the London, Johannesburg, and Frankfurt stock exchanges. Old Mutual is led by Chairman Mike Levett and CEO Jim Sutcliffe.