Banks, insurers, and diversified financial services companies on the JSE. South Africa's big four banks — Standard Bank, FirstRand, Absa, and Nedbank — are among the continent's most profitable institutions.
Been holding OMU for a while now, life insurance and asset management are steady businesses if you're patient. The dividend yield, that's the annual payout as a percentage of what you paid, has been decent enough to make the waiting worthwhile.
Life insurance and asset management are boring on purpose, mate. You're not buying OMU for fireworks, you're buying it because it makes steady cash and pays you to wait. At 13.25 I'm comfortable just holding.
Discovery's a life insurance company, so they make money when people pay premiums for cover and they pay out claims, the difference is theirs to keep. When they've made enough profit, they hand some of it back to shareholders as a dividend, per share, usually twice a year if things are going well.