End of an era for a 180-year-old South African insurance giant

Old Mutual has announced the retirement of its chairman, Trevor Manuel, who has reached the board’s retirement age of 70. 

Manuel, who has served as Old Mutual chairman since 2018, has overseen a transformative period for the company, which listed on the JSE in his first year in the role. 

The company has also gradually built out its capabilities as an integrated financial services provider, with its new OM Bank set to be the final piece in the puzzle. 

However, Manuel’s stewardship of the board was most tested by the insurer’s lengthy legal battle with former CEO Peter Moyo, which went all the way to the Constitutional Court. 

The spat between Moyo and the insurer burst into the public eye in May 2019 when he was suspended for an alleged conflict of interest. 

According to Old Mutual, the situation arose because the former CEO “violated the terms of his employment contract” by allegedly placing his private financial interests ahead of the company.

“In flagrant disregard of the provisions in his employment contract designed to manage conflicts of interest between NMT Capital (a company Moyo co-founded) and Old Mutual, Moyo chaired a meeting of the NMT Capital Board on 4 July 2018, at which it was decided to pay an ordinary dividend of R105 million.

“Moyo and his partners thus shared R84 million, while omitting to pay preference share dividends, valued at R65.4 million at the time, due to Old Mutual,” it said.

The company said that the situation with Moyo was untenable and that no company should be expected to endure it. They say that the relationship between the board and Moyo had completely broken down.

Moyo accused the board of acting in bad faith and of trying to remove him from office. The board has denied these allegations and has said that it acted in the best interests of Old Mutual.

The Constitutional Court has refused Moyo’s leave to appeal, saying that his application does not engage its jurisdiction.

Moyo had filed several lawsuits against Old Mutual after he was fired in mid-2019. He had initially succeeded in his legal application for temporary reinstatement, but Old Mutual managed to have that overturned on appeal. 

Moyo then brought several other cases, including an attempt to secure his reinstatement and R250 million in damages, another to have the directors, including chair Trevor Manuel, be declared delinquent, and one to have the directors be declared in contempt of court. 

The courts dismissed all of these cases.

This resulted in Old Mutual appointing Iain Williamson as CEO for five years, which stabilised the insurer and began the buildout of its banking offering. 

However, during this ‘holding’ period, other insurers did not waste time in aggressively launching new products and offerings to challenge Old Mutual’s dominant position in some categories. 

Most notably, Discovery launched its own bank during this period, which has scaled rapidly to over one million clients and profitability in the first half of its current financial year. 

Capitec also began eating Old Mutual’s lunch in the funeral insurance space, something which the insurer plans to address through the launch of its own bank. 

The man to do this, Jurie Strydom, ticked all the boxes for Manuel to be appointed CEO in June 2025, with the executive being tasked with reviving the insurer and leveraging its scale to unlock value for shareholders. 

The new chairman

On 17 March 2026, Old Mutual announced the appointment of Roger Jardine as Chairman Designate. He will assume the role at the conclusion of the company’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) to be held on 5 June 2026, subject to his confirmation as a director.

A three-month handover period from March to June 2026 has been designed to ensure continuity of strategic leadership, structured stakeholder engagement and a seamless transition.

Jardine joined the Old Mutual Board as a director in September 2025. Old Mutual said he is a highly respected South African business leader with extensive board-level and executive experience across South and southern Africa.

He most recently served as chairman of FirstRand for nearly six years. Prior to this, he held chief executive roles at Kagiso Media, the Aveng Group and Primedia. 

Jardine has also served as a non-executive director across a diverse range of sectors, including steel, retail, manufacturing, IT services, mining services and infrastructure development.

“Mr Jardine brings deep expertise in financial services, governance, commercial operations, stakeholder engagement, public policy, and the regulatory environment,” Old Mutual’s board said. 

He holds a Master of Science in Radiological Physics from Wayne State University and a Bachelor of Science in Physics from Haverford College in the United States.

 “On behalf of the Board, I want to congratulate Roger on his appointment as Chairman Designate,” Manuel said. 

“Roger has outstanding leadership experience in financial services and the broader business environment.”

Manuel said the board is confident that Jardine’s leadership will be invaluable to Old Mutual as it continues on its path of strategic and operational renewal and enhanced value creation. 

“I look forward to working closely with Roger over the next few months to ensure a smooth and effective transition,” Manuel said. 

Jardine will join Strydom on his mission to bring Old Mutual back to where it belongs, with this requiring cost savings, operational improvements, and the reclamation of lost market share. 

Upon becoming CEO, Strydom told investors that they would see Old Mutual refocus on group equity value and cash generation as its key metrics. 

“You’ll see a real focus, particularly on the life side of the business, a drive to improve that value of new business margin,” he said. 

Old Mutual will also focus on limiting customer churn by cross-selling products to lock clients into its ecosystem. This will improve its market share and give it an edge over banks looking to attract clients to their insurance offerings.

Strydom also said that major changes are being made to management incentives, with Old Mutual moving towards line-of-sight cost targets. Strydom said the company lacked such targets in the past.