In five years under CE Johan van Zyl, Sanlam has been repositioned away from its image as a mature life business focused on the Afrikaans market. Sanlam Investments, which barely registered as a contributor to the bottom line, now accounts for 35% of the group's net profit. And it includes businesses that are light years away from the old Sanlam culture.

One is the Swiss-based hedge fund business Octane (which recently acquired a local fund of hedge funds Blue Ink). Another is Sanlam Private Investments (SPI), which includes much of the old Davis Borkum Hare and Martin & Co private client book. SPI now has R50bn under management and over six years it has moved from a loss to pretax profits of R80m.

Even the core business, Sanlam Personal Finance, has diversified and now sources 18% of profits from nonlife businesses such as home and personal loans and debit cards.

Sanlam Developing Markets, the old African Life and Channel Life businesses are still small, accounting for 7% of profit and 5% of new business. But they are growing fast, with new business flows up 80% in 2007.

As Sanlam has been acquiring so widely, a few businesses have had to go into intensive care. Channel Life runs a call centre that was not producing sufficient volumes to meet its fixed costs. A new management team is introducing a turnaround strategy. The employee benefits business has been losing clients for some years, but it has a better prospect since the acquisition of the Coris Capital business, which administers the ArcelorMittal, Kumba and Exxaro pension funds.

And as it has been moved from the umbrella of the life business into the investments stable, the pace should move up a gear - Sanlam Investments CEO Johan van der Merwe is known for his results-driven approach.

Van Zyl has streamlined the excess capital in the group. He has given R9bn back to shareholders - R2,9bn in 2007 alone. He says this was less than anticipated - some analysts believe at least another R5bn can be released - but he expects to be able to release capital later this year.