Latest / Bruce Whitfield’s Business Week
FirstRand’s Vilakazi cleans up after R17bn UK hit
In this episode, FirstRand CEO Mary Vilakazi unpacks results that look worse than they are. Reported earnings fell 5% after an R11.4 billion provision for the UK motor finance scandal, but strip that out and normalised earnings from continuing operations grew 13%, with return on equity at 24%. The UK business is being sold, and FirstRand is placing its next big bet on Optasia, a fintech platform targeting the unbanked across Africa. Andrew Dunn of DNI tells one of South Africa’s most unexpected entrepreneurial stories. Watching bread trucks return idle by midmorning at Premier Foods, he…
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