Old Mutual Zimbabwe have approved an organisational restructuring exercise in line with a restructuring of the parent company, Old Mutual Plc.

Last year, Old Mutual Plc completed the demerger and separate listing of its wealth management business Quilter.

But Old Mutual Zimbabwe’s restructuring will result in the consolidation of the group’s 8 subsidiaries into just 3 main ones, namely Insurance, Wealth Management and Banking.

On Thursday, Old Mutual Zimbabwe shareholders unanimously voted in favour of the restructuring.

Resultantly, Old Mutual Property Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd and Old Mutual Real Estate Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd will be merged with Old Mutual Zimbabwe Investment limited into Old Mutual Investment Group Zimbabwe.

Banking subsidiary CABS and CABS Custodial Service (Pvt) Ltd will also be merged.

Old Mutual Property Investment Corporation (Pvt) Ltd and Old Mutual Life Assurance Company Zimbabwe Limited will also be brought together.

Shade Services Private Ltd which is owned by Old Mutual Zimbabwe will surrender operations into the other retained units and its employees will be inter-grated into the retained units.

Analysts say the restructuring exercise is expected to result in a huge costs reduction, a simplified operating structure, and improved operating efficiencies.

Meanwhile, the group says it has largely skated broader currency and exchange problems to perform according to expectations in the first quarter of 2019.

“Performance across all our operations has remained resilient and actually normalizing from the impact of the transition to the new currency regime.

“Profits have also remained in line with expectations while expense growth was managed to levels below the year on year inflation numbers released for the first quarter of the year,” said chief operating officer Isiah Mashinga this week.