The financial services company Old Mutual said on Monday that their sales volumes took a nosedive because of the difficult macroeconomic environment and COVID-19 in the first six months.
“Although lockdown restrictions have been eased and economic activity has somewhat resumed, sales levels remain lower than last year’s levels. Although there has been some recovery since the start of the second quarter of the year, average equity market levels were 12.1 percent lower than last year during the first half year,” said Old Mutual CEO Iain Williamson.
He stated that there was significant market volatility as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown on its first six months results while new business sales volumes were negatively impacted as many of its advisers were unable to sell during the lockdown.
“While we expect the ongoing fallout of the pandemic to continue to put pressure on our customers and affect our performance for the remainder of 2020, we remain cautiously optimistic that the easing of lockdowns everywhere will be positive for us,” he said.
Williamson said with a strong balance sheet and capital position, they hope to invest in growth opportunities.
Xinhua
