Sasfin Holdings restructures as banking regulations bite

Prinesha Naidoo

Sasfin Holdings aims to separate its diversified business into three distinct businesses – Banking, Wealth and Capital – by mid-year, after a tough interim period.

The group reduced its dividend for the six months to December 31 2016, by 18.84% to 80 cents per share, after earnings declined by a similar margin.

“From a regulatory point of view, what we’re hoping to achieve is that only the bank part of the business will be regulated as a bank in terms of the Banks Act.

We’re hoping that the other parts of the business will be regulated – everything we do is regulated – but that they won’t have that heavy banking regulation, which is huge,” said group chief executive Roland Sassoon this week.

Headline earnings and headline earnings per share fell to R86.14 million and 271.41 cents, down from R106.14 million and 334.43 cents respectively.

It attributed the decrease to credit losses and a write down in its investment in Efficient Group, due to a decline in Efficient’s share price.

The group’s credit loss ratio deteriorated to 121 basis point from 50 basis points previously as non-performing loans increased by 100% to R466 million.

It said loan recoveries, subsequent to the reporting period, reduced non-performing loans to R349 million.