‘03

Old Mutual is committed to full and vigorous participation in all Charter issues.

There are several reasons for this: Old Mutual is keen to be a part of an industry-wide initiative aimed at tackling empowerment, and the Charter sets out to help address the inequalities that remain within the country, despite the “political miracle” introduced by this country's first-ever democratic elections in 1994.

Also, from an investor perspective the Charter provides clarity. Investors now have a clear view of the challenges, and the imperatives, attendant upon financial services companies.

And finally, the Charter, successfully implemented, has the potential to impact significantly on South Africa's economic growth and development prospects.

Old Mutual takes the view that a successfully implemented Charter is good for its business, the sector and the country.

Fundamental to the Charter is that organisations that voluntarily became signatories will have their progress towards various targets measured annually from 2004 onward. There will be major industry reviews conducted in both 2009 and 2015.

That measurement will be uniform for all signatories and will occur via a scorecard.

Each financial institution is required to publish annual BEE reports, including audited scorecards. The first report must be published in 2005 covering 2004 performance.

Old Mutual is in a position where it is already able to report on performance for the year ended 31 December 2003. This performance is summarised in the accompanying table, with further detail provided throughout the report. We have not formally scored our performance due to the fact that certain aspects of the Charter such as empowerment financing are still being finalised. The next Old Mutual Corporate Citizenship Report will contain an audited and scored scorecard.

Besides recording our performance against the various charter targets, this report also provides details of the following unquantified Charter undertakings: Creating a non-racial, non-sexist working environment; investing in human resource development including the development of leadership; career pathing and mentorship programmes for new black management; the elimination of discrimination in the provision of financial services; and the promotion of shareholder activism.