Sanlam is a company with a rich and interesting history, dating back to our founding in 1918. Browse through the topics below to find out more about our heritage, our vision, values and strategy, the evolution of our brand and much more.

• Who we are

• What we do

• Our vision

• Our values

• Our strategy

• Our brand

• Performance highlights for 2008
  

Who we are

Sanlam turned 90 on 8 June 2008.

In nine decades we have grown from a modest life insurance company in 1918 – Die Suid-Afrikaanse Nasionale Lewens Assuransie Maatskappij Beperk – to a leading financial services group in South Africa, Sanlam, with business interests elsewhere in Africa, Europe and India.

Our head office is in Bellville near Cape Town and we have a strong presence in all major areas in South Africa, including Gauteng, where we have offices in Hyde Park, Johannesburg.We employ just over 9 000 employees and about 2 000 financial advisers (excluding India, where we have about 16 000 accredited agents).

Apart from our business successes over the decades, there is another golden thread that runs through our history – we’ve been at the forefront with empowerment and transformation for 90 years.

While Sanlam’s establishment in 1918 was mainly aimed at empowering impoverished Afrikaners after two wars and the Great Flu epidemic, Sanlam was also responsible for the first national Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) transaction as far back as in 1993, when Sanlam sold Metropolitan Life to a black-owned consortium that led to the establishment of NAIL.

In 1998 we completed the largest demutualisation programme in the country at that stage and listed on the JSE and Namibian stock exchanges on 30 November. With our roots firmly in South- and southern Africa, these are still the only two stock exchanges on which we are listed. In 2004 we again led the financial services industry in SA through our own groundbreaking BEE transaction. with Ubuntu-Botho.

These are but a few of the milestones in our history, that epitomise what we stand for.

In a nutshell: Over the past 90 years we’ve been leading with empowerment and transformation in living our vision of being the leader in wealth creation and protection.

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What we do

We’ve grown from a life insurance company to a leading financial services group. We pride ourselves on giving our clients professional financial advice and delivering solutions tailored to meet their needs. We do that through a number of mutually dependent business entities, focusing mainly, but not exclusively on offering solutions for wealth creation and protection, investment management and ancillary financial services solutions for individuals and institutions.

These include life and risk solutions to all segments of the market, provision for retirement, investment management solutions for institutional and individual investors, administration of estates, home loans, health-care management, personal loans, short-term insurance and individual savings mechanisms such as collective investments.

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Our vision

Our vision is to be the leader in wealth creation and protection, and in this pursuit we remain primed to seize opportunities that come our way and to meet the challenges that confront us.

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Our values

Our shared business philosophy has its roots in an entrepreneurial culture with its essence captured in the traditional values of honesty, diligence, superior ethical behaviour, innovation, stakeholder values and strong ties with business partners. Our business model is focused on client-centricity and on being solution oriented.

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Our strategy

In 2009 our strategy is to continue with our strong focus on effective capital utilisation, to pursue growth opportunities and to maintain our tight grip on cost structures, transformation and diversification through a broader range of solutions over a wider geographical area.

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Our brand

The Sanlam brand has been part of the South African financial and economic landscape since 1918 and has evolved over time, as the environment in which we operate has changed.



To communicate our differentiated offering to the retail market, we have four individual sub-brands to identify unique portfolios of solutions tailored for relevant and specific retail segments: Sanlam Sky for the entry-level market, Sanlam Topaz for the middle market, Sanlam Cobalt for self-employed individuals and Glacier by Sanlam for the affluent market.

Our businesses in the investments and the institutional markets traditionally all provide customised solutions specifically designed to meet the needs of their clients and they strongly reinforce the overall corporate brand positioning.

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Performance highlights for 2008

• Core earnings per share up 1%;

• New business volumes of R100 billion;

• Value of new covered business up 23% to R698 million;

• Return on Group Equity Value per share of -1,7%;

• Dividend per share up by 5% to 98 cents per share.
  

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