South African billionaire Jannie Mouton's PSG grows client assets to $35.7 billion

PSG Financial Services Ltd., the wealth manager that grew out of South African billionaire Jannie Mouton's PSG investment group, said assets under management rose 15% to 594.1 billion rand ($35.7 billion) in the six months through August, even as a sharp fall in performance fees held back profit growth.

Recurring headline earnings per share rose 5% to 60.9 South African cents, the Johannesburg-based company said in its interim results on Thursday. Core income climbed 5% to 4.16 billion rand ($250 million). Earnings attributable to shareholders fell 3% to 755.1 million rand ($45.3 million), because the prior period included a 51 million rand gain on the sale of an insurance business in Namibia.

The board raised the interim dividend 10% to 22 cents a share, payable on Nov. 9.

Weaker markets cut performance fees

The slowdown came from the asset management arm, which earns extra fees when its funds beat their benchmarks. Performance fees made up just 1.9% of headline earnings, compared with 7.3% a year earlier. Stripping those fees out, recurring headline earnings per share rose 11% to 59.8 cents.

"Asset valuations in certain sectors increasingly appear to depend on optimistic growth expectations," Chief Executive Officer Francois Gouws said in a statement accompanying the results. He said "short-term volatility and uncertainty are likely to persist" in South Africa, while adding that "inflation and fiscal outcomes have been generally well managed."

PSG Wealth, the advice-led business that serves individual clients through a national network of advisers, oversaw 504.9 billion rand ($30.3 billion), up 12%. PSG Asset Management's assets jumped 30% to 89.2 billion rand ($5.4 billion). The insurance unit, PSG Insure, grew gross written premiums 5% to 4.2 billion rand, though lower investment income and storm claims in the Western Cape weighed on its underwriting result.

The company kept returning cash to shareholders. It bought back and cancelled 8 million shares for 243.3 million rand ($14.6 million) during the period, leaving about 1.24 billion shares in issue. Return on equity slipped to 26.5% from 28.6%. Its capital cover ratio stood at 292%, almost three times the regulatory minimum.

The Mouton connection

Mouton founded PSG in 1995 after he was fired from the stockbroking firm he had co-founded. He built it into one of South Africa's most successful investment groups, backing businesses such as Capitec Bank Holdings Ltd., now one of the country's most valuable lenders, private schools operator Curro Holdings Ltd. and PSG Financial Services, which was previously known as PSG Konsult. PSG Group has since been broken up, with its stakes handed directly to shareholders.

The JF Mouton Family Trust held about 13% of PSG Financial Services at the end of the company's 2025 financial year in February of that year. That stake has since been partly reduced. The Jannie Mouton Stigting, a foundation linked to the family, took Curro private in a deal worth about 7.2 billion rand ($432 million) that paid Curro investors with shares in Capitec and PSG Financial Services. Curro left the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in January.

Mouton's son, Piet Mouton, the former chief executive of PSG Group, sits on the PSG Financial Services board. Jannie Mouton's fortune is estimated by Forbes at about $2.2 billion.