RMH (officially RMB Holdings Limited) is a

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

n diversified

financial services Financial services are service (economics), economic services tied to finance provided by financial institutions. Financial services encompass a broad range of tertiary sector of the economy, service sector activities, especially as concerns finan ...

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the Security (finance), securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own Share ...

Overview

RMH is listed on the JSE, and is headquartered in

Sandton Sandton is a financial, commercial and residential area, located in the northern part of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. Formerly an independent municipality, Sandton's name came from the combination of two of its suburbs, Sa ...

History

RMH traces its roots from Rand Consolidated Investments (RCI) and Rand Merchant Bank, which were founded in 1977 and 1968 respectively. RCI was co-founded by Paul Harris,

Gerrit Ferreira Gerrit Thomas Ferreira also known as GT Ferreira is a South African billionaire businessman, investor and banker who is one of the founders of FirstRand Limited. Biography Gerrit Ferreira got his MBA degree from University of Stellenbosch. In ...

and Lauritz Dippenaar. The company's objective was to offer leveraged leasing and off-balance-sheet financing to businesses. RCI failed to secure a banking licence; this led to the firm joining forces with Johann Rupert's Rand Merchant Bank in 1985. The newly created entity took up the Rand Merchant Bank name.

1987 to 2010

In 1987, RMH was found as the holding company for the expanding

Rand Merchant Bank FirstRand Limited, also referred to as FirstRand Group, is the holding company of FirstRand Bank, and is a financial services provider in South Africa. It is one of the financial services providers licensed by the Reserve Bank of South Africa ...

. RMH was listed through a reverse listing when it took control of Momentum Life on 1 July 1992. RMH acquired 30% and 28.7% stake in Momentum Life from ABSA and

Remgro Remgro Limited is a South African investment holding company, based in Stellenbosch. The company has interests in banking, financial services, packaging, glass products, medical services, mining, petroleum, beverage, food and personal care p ...

respectively. RMH also transferred its entire stake in Rand Merchant Bank to Momentum, thereby increasing its stake in Momentum Life to 76.4%. In the same year, the group founded

Discovery Limited Discovery Limited is a major South Africa, South African financial services and private healthcare group. Founded in 1992, the company is headquartered in Sandton, and listed on the JSE Limited, JSE. Overview Discovery Limited engages in l ...

along with Adrian Gore as a subsidiary of Momentum Life. On February 28, 1998 the group founded OUTsurance, a short-term insurance company. In April 1998, RMH entered into an agreement with Anglo American Corporation of South Africa (now

Anglo American plc Anglo American plc is a British Multinational corporation, multinational mining company with headquarters in London, England. It is the world's largest producer of platinum, with around 40% of world output, as well as being a major producer of ...

) to merge their financial services into a unified group. This merger gave rise to

First Rand FirstRand Limited, also referred to as FirstRand Group, is the holding company of FirstRand Bank, and is a financial services provider in South Africa. It is one of the financial services providers licensed by the Reserve Bank of South Africa ...

, which was listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on May 25, 1998, with Anglo American and RMH owning 20.43% and 25.03% of the authorized capital of FirstRand respectively. FirstRand had two main subsidiaries, FirstRand Bank and FirstRand Insurance, holding banking and insurance investments respectively.

2011 to date

On March 31, 2010, Momentum merged with Metropolitan Holdings to form MMI Holdings. This followed an agreement between the boards of Metropolitan Holdings, First Rand and Momentum Group. In March 2011, RMH'','' Remgro and FirstRand entered into an agreement to restructure their insurance assets. This was done by spanning off their entire insurance portfolios (i.e. MMI Holdings, Discovery Limited, OUTsurance and RMB-SI Investments) to RMI Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of RMH and subsequently

unbundling Unbundling is the process of breaking up packages of products and services that were previously offered as a group, possibly even free.https://groups.google.com/d/topic/alt.folklore.computers/RZA6FD27Tc0 a discussion group: OS/360: Forty years Unb ...

the entire shareholding in RMI Holdings to their shareholders. This restructure was completed on 7 March 2011. The shares of RMIH started trading at the JSE on the same day. RMB Structured Insurance Limited

underwrites Underwriting (UW) services are provided by some large financial institutions, such as banks, insurance companies and investment houses, whereby they guarantee payment in case of damage or financial loss and accept the financial risk for liability ...

customer policy benefits for Prime Meridian Direct (Pty) Ltd. After the RMI Holdings spin-off, the firm remained as a bank holding company.

Investments

RMH's investment include: * RHM Property (RMHP) – 100% shareholding – This is the property arm of RMH. It holds the following investments: ** Atterbury – 27.5% shareholding – Atterbury is a developer of prime commercial, retail and industrial property across South Africa such as

Mall of Africa Mall of Africa is a shopping mall located in Waterfall City, Midrand, Gauteng. It is the third largest single-phase shopping mall to be built in Africa, The mall has 130,000 square meters of total retail area. Mall of Africa has two main leve ...

, the rest of Africa and Europe. ** Propertuity – 34% shareholding – Founded by Jonathan Liebmann, Propertuity is focused on the redevelopment of dilapidated industrial and office areas in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

and

Durban Durban ( ; , from meaning "bay, lagoon") is the third-most populous city in South Africa, after Johannesburg and Cape Town, and the largest city in the Provinces of South Africa, province of KwaZulu-Natal. Situated on the east coast of South ...

. RMH previously held a 34.1% stake in

FirstRand FirstRand Limited, also referred to as FirstRand Group, is the holding company of FirstRand Bank, and is a financial services provider in South Africa. It is one of the financial services providers licensed by the Reserve Bank of South Africa ...

, which it unbundled to its shareholders in June 2020. This left the holding company with its property portfolio listed above as its only investments. Its stock is listed on the JSE and the

Namibian Stock Exchange The Namibia Securities Exchange (NSX) (; ) is the only stock exchange in Namibia. Based in Windhoek, it is one of the largest stock exchanges on the African continent. It has a partnership with JSE in neighbouring South Africa. The NSX is only ...

Ownership

The shares of RMH are listed on the JSE. the shareholding of RMH was as follows:

Governance

RMH is governed by a 16-person board of directors, with Gerrit Thomas Ferreira as the chairman of the board. This structure is similar to that of RMI Holdings since the two firms share their management team and resources under a management contract.

References

{{Witwatersrand companies Banks of South Africa Companies based in Sandton Insurance companies of South Africa Financial services companies established in 1987 Banks established in 1987 Companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange Companies in the FTSE/JSE Top 40 Index Financial services companies of South Africa