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South African insurance tycoon Adrian Gore was out-earned by one of his own executives at Discovery Ltd. for a fourth straight year, after the head of its bank and South African operations was paid almost R14 million ($840,000) more than him in the year to June.
Hylton Kallner, chief executive of Discovery SA and Discovery Bank, received total pay of R51.3 million ($3.1 million) in the 2026 financial year, according to Discovery's remuneration report. That was 16% less than the R61.1 million he got a year earlier, but still well ahead of Gore, the group chief executive, whose package edged up 0.7% to R37.5 million ($2.27 million).
Barry Swartzberg, a co-founder of Discovery who is an executive director and runs its international Vitality Group, was paid R28.8 million ($1.74 million), up 10% from R26.1 million. Group finance chief Deon Viljoen received R30.4 million ($1.84 million).
How the pay was made up
Gore's package consisted of about R11.1 million in salary, retirement contributions and benefits, a R13.2 million cash bonus and a further R13.2 million in deferred shares under Discovery's share incentive plan. The structure was almost unchanged from a year earlier, when he received R37.2 million.
Kallner's mix shifted. His cash bonus fell to R11.2 million ($680,000) from R25.8 million, while the value of deferred share awards rose to R30.4 million ($1.84 million). His pay includes an outperformance single incentive, a scheme Discovery uses to reward executives who run new and fast-growing businesses when they hit what the company calls super-stretched targets. The awards are funded by the extra profit those targets generate and are now settled in shares that vest over three years.
Swartzberg's rise came mainly from his deferred share award, which increased to R11.1 million from R9.1 million. His salary and benefits came to R8.2 million, and his cash bonus was R9.4 million.
Shareholders backed Discovery's pay policy with 94.4% of votes at last year's annual meeting, and 96.1% approved the way it was carried out.
Bank profit and Gore's shares
Kallner's pay covers a year in which Discovery Bank made its first normalised profit, R370 million ($22.4 million), after a loss of R68 million a year earlier, and its client base grew 26% to almost 1.6 million. Across the group, normalised headline earnings rose 21% to R11.8 billion ($715 million), and normalised profit from operations increased 17% to R17.8 billion.
Gore, an actuary, started Discovery as a health insurer in 1992 and built it into one of South Africa's largest financial services groups, with a health and life insurer in Britain and a Vitality rewards business that works with insurers abroad, including Ping An Health in China. He holds his Discovery shares indirectly.
In June, Gore sold 226,000 Discovery shares for about R62 million ($3.76 million) to settle part of a maturing hedge, sales the company said amounted to roughly 0.5% of his holding. He scrapped the rest of the hedge and bought put options on 1 million shares, which protect him against a fall in the stock below about R200 until 2031 without capping his gains. Swartzberg bought put options on 540,000 shares at the same time.
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