Welcome to the interim results presentation. I would like to make a few comments before we go into the detail of the presentation. You will remember that last year, we did announce that we will be de merging and listing separately our Global Asset Management business. This was in pursuit of our stated strategy that we wanted to focus and simplify the business as we go forward because we believed as a board that, that would be the best way for us to achieve our long term growth objectives. We also, in February this year, at a Bank and Wealth Capital Markets Day, we did announce a number of initiatives that we thought we would executing order to increase significantly the returns that, that business is generating.
And beyond that, these initiatives would give us a platform that would enable us to grow that business. So in these results, you will see that we have taken certain strategic actions, which encompass the demerger of the Asset Management business, the further focusing and simplification of the bank and wealth business, which included the selling, the closing our restructuring of certain subscale businesses. The impact of these strategic actions we'll be separately disclosed so that you can have as clear a view of the underlying business as is possible. So to start off the presentation, let me say that if there were 3 things that we wanted you to take away from today's results. They would be the following.
Firstly, Our client franchise businesses continue to make very solid progress. During the course of the presentation, we will show you underlying growth in net inflows and asset under management in the Asset Management business and in the Wealth business. Secondly, we also will show you in the banking business growth in the loan books and growth in deposits. So pretty fundamental for us that our franchises have shown continued solid progress. Secondly, in this period, we have taken certain strategic actions to focus and to simplify the Wealth and Investment business.
In addition, we continue to invest in our platforms to position them for longer term growth. The impact of those two actions, further investment in the platform, strategic actions taken to focus and simplify the Bank and Wealth business will necessarily impact the reported operating results. In addition, obviously, to the fact that in this period, the markets were particularly challenging and the economies were quite tough. The 3rd takeaway for us would be the fact that we are making significant progress, and we are on track to deemerge into 2 independent businesses, the Global Asset Management Business on the one hand and the Bank and Wealth on the other end. We believe these businesses are strong and well poised for long term growth and value creation for all our stakeholders.
For us, the demeasure is not about short term value creation. It's about positioning these businesses for the long term for the benefit of all our stakeholders. I will jump ahead into the detail of the results. We have seen solid operational performance against what we term as significantly challenging backdrop. In South Africa, we know that the economy is growing at under 1%, and we have a level of uncertainty and lack of confidence that makes trading particularly difficult in the UK.
Equally, we have Brexit. That continues to roll ahead, and that makes trading conditions very difficult because our clients, both private clients and corporate clients sit on their hands, sitting out the uncertainty. So adjusted operating profit of GBP 373,600,000 would represent 1.7% decrease from the prior year in pounds, of course, in neutral currency, the results would be flat. This translates into a decrease of 4% in adjusted earnings per share to 28 0.9p. The drop from 1.7% to 4% is as a consequence of the increased weighted number of shares.
And as we announced earlier on, we did indicate that Going forward, we have stopped the issuing of shares to satisfy the requirements of staff incentive schemes. What we will do to satisfy those requirements is buy shares from the market. If you look at basic EPS, down 10.5%. This is impacted by the strategic actions that we have taken. In the next slide, we will briefly unpack these strategic actions that we have taken.
ROE comes in at 13.1%. The cost to income ratio is flat, reflecting largely the fact that the revenue environment is very difficult despite the fact that we have made significant progress in cost containment and efficiency improvements. Our net asset value per share increased 3.3%. Our dividend will be flat at 11p. In Rents, the dividend will be up 2.4 percent to EUR 2.11 As I said in my introductory remarks, our franchises are particularly solid, and we saw substantial net inflows of GBP 3,500,000,000 We also saw a growth in AUM of 6.4 percent in the Asset and Wealth Management Businesses, bringing assets under management to 177 £900,000,000 really substantial net flows in our 2 businesses.
The loan book on the banking side grew by 2% to GBP 25,400,000,000 That 2% is obviously growth over 6 months annualized. That would be 4%. And Our deposits grew by 2.3% over the 6 months, annualized 4.6%. So our lending franchises in both the U. K.
Banking business and the South African Banking Businesses have shown resilience in a period that is particularly difficult. Performance was affected by lower Investment Banking fees, which in an environment that we are in, is in line with market and with other competitors. So our franchise continues to perform reasonably well in a very, very, very difficult environment. In the prior year. You will remember that we had indicated that we restructured our subordinated debt, leading to a significant gain.
Also in the prior year in South Africa, we saw some significant currency translation gains. So all in all, solid performance against the backdrop of very, very difficult market conditions. So moving on to the strategic actions we have taken and progress that we're making against our strategic objectives. We are confident to report that the demeasure is on track. We have received all key regulatory approvals, and we expect to release the shareholder circular within or by the end of the month.
I needed to be sure that our advisers were quite keen for us not to mention the date, Stephen. I can see that Stephen is saying, why are you not giving us a date? We have also in the Bank and Wealth Business taking a number of decisive actions to further focus and simplify that business. We've closed Click and Invest as previously announced. We have also we are closing and we are running down the Hong Kong direct investment business, And we have sold the Irish Wealth and Investment business.
The money is in the bank. And there are other restructures that we have done, but I do not want to mention all of them here on account of time. We have made some significant progress on cost containment and operating efficiencies on our platforms. The U. K.
Specialist Bank reduced operating costs by £25,000,000 or a reduction in costs of 9.1%. That really is a significant effort from David and the team, and Ruth going forward will be continuing that good work. To date, we have identified at the center cost savings of 10,000,000 pounds. That is a 20% saving in group central costs. Going forward, we also have identified opportunities to save GBP 7,500,000 in our infrastructure in the Bank and Wealth business, these deliverable by the end our financial year 2021.
We have also in the past indicated that we needed to optimize our capital. So on capital management, we can report that in South Africa, we have now been able to convert to FIRB from the 1st April 2019, and this gave us an uplift in our core equity Tier 1 ratio of 1.1%. We are in the process at the moment of converting to ARRB having submitted our regulatory applications for approval and on successful implementation Of that conversion, we expect to see a reduction in required capital of 3 to €4,000,000,000 which represents approximately 1% uplift in the CET1 ratio of Investec Limited. We have also indicated that we are going to reduce in South Africa our investment portfolio that the strategy will be to invest behind our clients. So we will continue to be in this business, but behind our clients, reducing proprietary business.
We do expect that on completion of the program, we will again have a reduction in required capital of at least €2,500,000,000 Very clearly, we are managing for value, so the market conditions will determine when it is prudent for us to realize part of this portfolio in a manner that adds value to our shareholders. So I'm now going to call upon our Chief Financial Officer, Nishlan, to present the detail of the results. And I'm going to just acknowledge Glenn Berger, the previous Chief Financial Officer, who is in the audience. Nishlan, over to you.
Thanks, Fani. All right. Good morning to everyone, and It's a pleasure once again to stand in front of all of you. I think if I just present a snapshot of the results and we will go into detail on each of these matrices shortly. As Fani has mentioned, adjusted operating profit was down 1.7%.
I think, Keith, the ROE for the combined group has come in at 13.1% for the 6 month period, with the cost to income ratio at 7.3%, pretty much flat on the prior year, which was at 67.2%. The capital ratios across the business has remained fairly healthy with South Africa's CET1 ratio at 11.6%. And as Fannie has highlighted, that really is the impact of FIRB, and you can see a better level of comparability to the South African market ratios. From a PLC perspective, we remain on the standardized approach and our CET1 ratio is at 10.7%. From a dividend cover perspective, the dividend of EUR 0.11 or EUR 2.11 translates into 2.6 times cover compared to around about 2.7 in the prior year.
Now let's get into some detail around each of these. I think if we look at the divisional performance, overall operating profit dropping from GBP 379 £900,000 by 1.7 percent to £373,600,000 In terms of detail, the Specialist Bank in the UK Produced operating profit of £79,400,000 that is a decrease of 18.9% on the year. And really as a function of a decrease in advisory and corporate finance fees, Given the fact that their conclusions have not reached a point of execution in terms of activity. And as Fanny has mentioned in the prior year, we also recognized a gain on some of our subordinated debt that we realized. However, taking those factors out, our Private Banking business and the rest of the businesses actually performed fairly strongly in the in that environment.
From a Specialist Bank in South Africa Reported operating profit of GBP 175,600,000 in the period, growing 8.5% within a market that I think has got its own challenges. I think we still see strong activity from our client base, strong support from our underlying clients and strong acquisition of clients. Obviously, there are headwinds in particular areas as execution is challenged in this particular market. From a Wealth and Investment perspective. The combined Wealth and Investment business produced £44,500,000 of operating profit in the current period.
In London, we or in the U. K, we did see an increase in costs of around about £8,000,000 in the period, Which really is associated with about £2,500,000 associated with regulatory aspects, And that's really FSCSC levies picking up in the period, which is really associated with protecting the underlying customer base as well as increased costs on technology spend, which is an area that we continue to remain focused on. I think it's important to recognize that these results are pretty much in line if not credible within the context of the market in that particular environment. From a group cost perspective, we've decreased the group costs £500,000 in the current period. And we will anticipate that these group costs continue to decrease as we go through the transition.
The combined asset management business producing I think just over £95,000,000 and really supported by strong inflows in the period as well as positive markets that have grown assets under management to record levels of GBP 120,800,000,000 in the current period. If we look at the key earnings drivers, as I've mentioned, 3rd party assets under management increasing by 6.4% to £177,900,000,000 in other words, to £120,800,000,000 for the Asset Management business And around about £57,000,000,000 within the Bank and Wealth Businesses with the majority represented in the Wealth Businesses. Net inflows across the portfolios of £3,500,000,000 in the current period. From a customer accounts perspective, customer accounts growing by 2% to €25,400,000,000 And we've seen that across our portfolio In terms of both South Africa and the U. K, particularly within our private client books.
Customer deposits supporting the growth. And We continue to be focused in terms of retail deposits and diversifying our cost base. From an operating income perspective, operating income dropped from €1,290,000,000 to around about €1,260,000,000 €1,000,000,000 to around about €1,260,000,000 And we can see that the key line which was affected is trading income. If we had to unpack trading income, our flow from customers or customer flow trading income dropped about £2,000,000 in the current period to about £65,000,000 So the majority actually of that adjustment really coming off what we would refer to as trading income from balance sheet management. And that's specific transactions in the prior year and currency gains in the prior year with that line contributing pretty much a flat return in the current period.
From a net interest income perspective, we have growth of about 4% At €18,300,000 supported by strong growth in the underlying books in the prior year and reasonable momentum in the current period. Annuity fees grew by 2%, really supported by growth in the Asset Management, as well as the Wealth Management business in the current period. Investments and associate income is lower at £10,800,000 and that's really a lower contribution from our investment in IEP, which did have a realization in the prior period, which we had detailed before. Think from an operating mix perspective, you can see that we maintain a healthy annuity income ratio at 77,600,000 percent and continue to see strong input from the core drivers in terms of revenue. From an operating cost perspective, operating costs for the 6 months have decreased from £841,800,000 to £833,500,000.
The key areas of drop coming from premises. In our U. K. Business, we are now Through the double rental period and that's released about £8,000,000 of costs of the overall reduction in cost of £25,000,000 in our the U. K.
Business. We continue to invest in equipment, and you see that come through in equipment and depreciation. There has been an accounting change in the current period because we've adopted IFRS 16, which effectively grosses up the balance sheet. But for us as a banking business without a significant footprint that has had in other words, without a branch network that it has had a muted impact in terms of the overall income statement itself. Personnel costs in the current period actually reducing by 0.3%, representing a reduction in variable income, as well as muted headcount, In fact, no headcount growth in the current period as we manage our way through this particular cycle.
From an overall cost to income ratio, as I've mentioned, it's remained fairly flat year on year, and that's in the context of a lower revenue environment, and you can see the impact of effectively managing our cost base through the current period. From an expected loss perspective, our current credit loss ratio is about 23 basis points, With South Africa at 18 basis points and the U. K. At 28 basis points, we would say that the South African credit loss ratio is at the lower end. However, noting that in terms of credit quality, we have not noted any significant deterioration.
Now you may see an uptick in some of our what we would term Stage 2 exposures, particularly around corporate exposures, but that's really driven by very specific areas where we haven't seen a related increase in the requirement of impairments against that. From an ROE perspective, and I must note that we've restated the comparative ROE to remove the strategic actions that we show separately. So we've restated that ROE up from 12.9% to 14.2%. And in the current period, that's come in at 13.1 percent of total ordinary shareholders' equity that has increased from €4,120,000,000 To €4,225,000,000 that really representing net retained profits in the current period. [SPEAKER JAIME SAENZ DE TEJADA:] We did reflect a net buyback of shares in the current period.
So that's really supported by net increase in retained profits. The dividend cover we have discussed with dividend at 11p representing a rand dividend of €2.11 I think if we have to unpack the return on equity, and this is a slide that we introduced in Markets Day in January, and is an area that all of our core businesses that are capital intensive we'll continue to measure themselves against. From a South African perspective, the ROE for the South African bank is at 12.6%, With our investment portfolio returning an ROE of about 6.5% in the current period, as we would have seen muted valuation movements in this period. The investment portfolio currently has about 17% of our capital base allocated against it in South Africa. And as Fani has indicated, we will continue to manage that portfolio over the next while.
The total capital allocation to the South African bank at about €2,100,000,000 overall. From a U. K. Specialist bank, We have seen an improvement in the profitability on our banking business. That's really our transactional and mortgage platform that we have Now fully implemented in the U.
K. And whilst that has come in at a negative 29 point 6% ROE. I think it's an area where we continue to experience good client acquisition given the recent implementation of that So factoring that into play, the U. K. Bank's ROE is at 10.1%.
The overall ROE for Bank and Wealth is at 10.7% against the target that we have set of greater than 12%, which we are have set over the next 3 years to attain. From a balance sheet perspective, I think you can see that the leverage ratios across Both Investec Limited and PLC remain healthy, with the PLC reporting a leverage ratio of 7.8% and, South Africa at 7.3%. We've discussed the capital ratios and this schedule really highlights the more detailed ratios. And from a liquidity perspective, I think we've remained on a cautious front maintaining our cash and near cash levels at about £13,000,000,000 Across the balance sheet and in particular in the U. K.
As we've maintained liquidity across the uncertainty associated with Brexit. I think I'm going to hand over to Fani, and Hendrik will join just after Fani to discuss the business reviews. Thanks, everyone.
Thank you, Nichelin. I'm going to go through the next section fairly quickly so that we can get Hendrik to bet. By the way, this is the last presentation we did together, assuming that our shareholders do approve the demeasure. So this is quite an important presentation for us as a team. Sir Hendrik, I'll go quickly through my the remaining slides so that you can look in back.
Part of the reason we are doing it this way is as we go into the demeasure, we want to also give a bit more color to each of the businesses because post the demerger, the businesses will be completely independent, as I said, and they will be pursuing their own growth trajectories. Just looking at the Bank and Wealth business, the business has diversified over 2 geography. So our revenues come from those geographies in the main and from 2 businesses. You can see from this slide that operating income was down about 4% to £959,300,000 The majority of the operating income comes from outside of Southern Africa. If you look at the adjusted operating profit, A third of our profits in this period come from outside of Southern Africa.
As we move forward, we would expect that the mix of contribution to profit should shift towards the U. K. And other businesses because we are now seeing significant momentum in the U. K. Business.
As we said, we have been investing in the private banking proposition there, and we're seeing significant traction in that proposition. We will also we should also benefit from the effects of scale as that business grows. What is important is that we have an opportunity to capture a much larger proportion of a market that is really large out in the UK. Adjusted operating profit was down 4.2 percent to £276,300,000 looking at the South African Specialist Banking. As Nicholene indicated, we saw an increase in adjusted operating profit of 8.5% in rands, 6.7% in pounds In an economy that is growing at under 1% with the level of uncertainty that we have and the lack of confidence from both private and corporate clients, I think Richard and the team have done a superb job to produce this kind of result.
We have seen growth in the loan book in the 6 month period of 0.9 percent to €273,700,000,000 obviously, that growth would be 1.8% if you annualized it. We have seen good progress in the a private bank with loan growth there. On the corporate end of the market, we have seen activity, but we have seen net repayments that obviously worked against growth in the loan book. So great support from private clients, more caution from corporates given the environment. The deposit book grew by 2.2 percent to €349,200,000,000 As Nicholian said, we continue to look to diversify our liability base and raising retail deposits is one of the key objectives that Richard and the team are pursuing.
If you look at the operating income, obviously, given the growth in the private bank, we saw an increase in interest income and fee income from private client activity. And as already indicated in the prior year, we saw a gain in that business as a consequence of currency translation that occurred in that period. Looking at cost containment and efficiencies. The business recorded a cost to income ratio of 49.5%, which is already inside of our medium term cost to income target of 49% to 52 percent. As indicated, operating income was flat.
Operating costs contained at 1.6 percent in an environment where inflation is around 4%, 4.5%, so that is a good outcome. Initially, indicated that our impairments remain low with our credit loss ratio in South Africa at 0.18 percent, 18 basis points, which in this particular period was affected by the fact that we saw some recoveries, but also fundamentally reflects the fact that our client franchise it's particularly resilient. So if I go to the Specialist Banking business in the U. K. And other territories, we indicated that performance was down 18.9%, but the underlying driver in that business of core loans was up 2.7 percent to £10,800,000,000 annualized 5.4%.
What is particularly pleasing in this business is that we saw significant traction both in terms of client acquisition, but also loan book growth in the high net worth space. You will remember that we have been talking about a strategic decision to invest in the private bank in the UK, specifically transactional banking. On the corporate side of the business, we saw reasonable levels of origination and sell down activity. Our lending franchises in the Corporate Bank continue to do well. We also have specialist international franchises, for instance, Project and Infrastructure Finance, which have done well in this period.
If you look at operating income, again, I don't want to sound like a broken record. Investment Banking fees, as explained by Nesliel and myself, are down in this environment just given where the whole market is. And we've talked about the fact that client flow trading income is generally in line, but what impacted that line is the gains that we recorded in the prior period because of the restructure of the sub debt. Cost to income ratio, we indicated that we would like to see this ratio at below 65% by the end of financial 2022. In this period, operating income is down 8.8%, a factor of the environment.
Operating costs reduced by CHF 25,000,000, a figure of 9.1%, as we have said, this is really good effort by the team. Moving on to the Wealth and Investment business. This business recorded, as we said, a reduction in profitability of 10.8% in the U. K. That reduction is 16.2%.
That may seem like a significant underperformance. In industry terms, this business performed largely in line on a revenue basis with the market. It's a tough, tough, tough market. As I said in my opening statements when I talked about the strength of our franchises, the investment in platforms and strategic actions and the demeasure. We have invested in the platform.
So that's why you have seen an increase in technology costs to position that business for growth in the longer term. So we are quite happy with the performance of that business. Of course, we will look at the cost base and continue to look for efficiencies and improvement in underlying margin as you can see there. A good business, a great franchise nationwide with 15 offices across that business with very loyal clients. As Jonathan Regg normally puts it, this business started during the days of Queen Victoria.
So it's quite a long time ago. It's a great business. Sorry, before I go over that, the South African business. I see Hendry was about to be upset with me. The South African business performed particularly well, recording an increase in rands of 6.6% in adjusted operating profit.
There was significant pickup by our clients of our offshore offerings. It's a business that is at the top end of the market, really an iconic business run by a very entrepreneurial team. So our hopes around this business and the potential for us to develop the high net worth end of the market, both here and internationally, really excites us. Looking at the Bank and Wealth key metrics. We did indicate that we will be managing ROEs quite carefully and cost to income ratios quite carefully.
Post the demeasure, our 2022 target for ROE is 12% to 16%. We recorded in this period an ROE of 10.7%. As you know, we announced in February specific revenue growth initiatives. In South Africa, for instance, we are going quite aggressively into the transactional banking market aimed at mid market corporates. We have launched Investec Life.
We have a number of other initiatives. In Khumesh Private Bank, we have a young professionals drive, and people are excited about the potential in the market. We've talked about the successes in terms of cost discipline in this business. Richard and the team will continue to look at that. And across the business, you will see that there is focus increased focus on optimizing capital allocation, and I've talked about some of the initiatives there.
I don't want to repeat those. One of the things we're doing as we go forward as we are now presenting the power of the investor ecosystem from private banking, corporate banking, Wealth Management, Investment Banking, quite collectively in a shared proposition to our client, what we call in 1 Investec, and that really is a powerful way that we will deliver Investec as we move forward. We call it generally connectivity across the business. We will show you a slide that will contain some of the initiatives that we are undertaking this. So in that time frame of March 2022, the team remains confident that we will get into the ROE range that we have committed to.
With respect to cost to income, Again, I've spoken about the fact that we have made significant investment into our platforms and that we are seeing continued leverage and momentum and scale to benefit from the investments already made. And I've talked about a reduction in group costs. We've talked about reductions in costs in the U. K. Business, and we've also talked about certain identified savings in the infrastructure in the Bank and Wealth business.
Lindon Subroen is not here. He's in our London office. He's been doing some interesting work across the infrastructure platform to make it more efficient, but also to make sure that we can be more effective and deliver an experience to our clients that continues to improve. So over the next 2 years. We expect to get that cost to income ratio target ratio rather inside of the target of less than 63%.
I'm not going to go through this slide. It's a fairly busy slide, but it summarizes the 5 strategic initiatives that we announced in February that on execution will lead to us increasing the returns in the Bank and Wealth business pretty substantially, but also will lead to us offering to our clients a much more compelling proposition to improve the business from where it is. Investec Bank and Wealth is already a very compelling business, an iconic brand, and we intend to improve on that as we go forward. So capital discipline, growth initiatives that are specific, cost management activities, looking at connectivity and One Investec as a proposition and using the power of technology and digitalization to increase and improve the experience of our clients to look to be innovative, but also to be more efficient as we go forward. I won't go through each of those.
You have them in your pack to look at. So in conclusion, on the banking side, I see Henrik is almost on his feet. We remain committed to our 2022 performance targets on the back of the initiatives that we are already executing as a team. We believe that the Bank and Wealth business is well positioned for the long term sustainable growth that we are prosecuting. We have deep and growing client franchises in the disciplines that I have spoken about.
We offer differentiated propositions. We are not everything to everybody. So we are differentiated in our proposition to private clients and corporate clients. And we are a valued partner to those clients in the long term. In a market like we are in where things are tough, we support our clients.
We continue to support them because when better markets come back. Our clients will reward us for having supported them, and we are long term in nature. The business is well capitalized, lowly leveraged and has strong liquidity. We generate capital to support our growth at the CMD. We said that we aim to grow our loan book by between 8% 10% through the cycle.
Obviously, this particular cycle is very difficult, so our growth rates may be lower than that target. So we generate enough capital to do that, and we also generate capital to be able to distribute to shareholders. Post the demerger, the 2 businesses will have the same Citi to generate cash and dividends that we have today. So shareholders then have to be concerned about that issue because it will be the same two businesses just separated and independent. Their capacity to generate dividends will remain the same.
Hendrik, over to you.
Thank you, Steve. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. And Fani, thank you for setting out the Bank and Wealth business so clearly after you initially did the group. And I think I don't have to argue much more why we need a demerger. Farne said he wasn't going to use much time and so that I can explain asset management.
And I think it's really important that you understand The Bank and Wealth is an exciting business with exciting prospects and which is going through a transition that is important but needs a great deal of focus. Similarly, the asset management business is a business that you need to understand that operates according to a slightly different logic in different geographies, in a very different market. And so you're going to have the fun of coming to 2 presentations quite soon, And you'll understand much more about these businesses that you own today, which as Farnier said, has a we'll have a combined dividend capacity, which is no different from today. But in our opinion, we'll be able to grow faster and better in a more capital efficient way in the years to come. And there's another point I would like to make before I start with the asset management review.
And that is, this is the first time, I think, Fani and I were quite proud about it at the board meeting, where we could tell the board that the average number of shares in Issuu will not increase. And if your denominator doesn't increase, You don't have to grow that much to give your shareholders more. And I think that is what we're working for and what we're trying to do and where we need your support in the process that will unfold after the circular has been posted. Go to the asset management business And you see continued growth in assets under management based built on some very solid net inflows, particularly relative to industry, euros 3,200,000,000 is a number or a talk ratio of over 5 is a number you don't need to be shy about In these conditions, we have had continued market and currency support as well. But it is a solid performance based on ultimately investment of clients being satisfactory because clients have very significant choice.
And I think the asset management team did a good job over the last 6 months. Then, of course, that translated into an adjusted operating profit growth of a little over 6%, 6.3% and at a constant operating margin. So I think it's the business you know, It's the business you've come to know over many years that is doing what it should be doing and importantly has not been defocused by the demerger discussions Because a very small team has been working on the demerger and the rest of the business under its existing leadership Has done exceptionally well to stay focused on what they should be, which is clients first and then investment performance. As far as flows are concerned, just to break that down, it's been a balanced result and therefore quality result because our net inflows have been Spread across all regions, all capabilities and all regions have been positive. So one side, I'm showing you per investment, per asset class and the other side, I'm showing we're showing you in the regions.
And our Africa business has had a particularly good, although less than the previous period, a particularly good 6 month relative to the market. And but what you can see is not dependent on one investment strategy Or on one region, it is actually grinding out across the result across the world. And I think that gives one a sense of diversified risk to performance. Then, of course, we announced a new brand. It will be called from today or from yesterday onwards, actually, Investec Asset Management becoming 91.
Not 91 years old, that's me. 91 is the company. So Investec Asset Management becoming 91 and then on demerger and listing shifting to just being called 91. And of course, you'll ask us why there's a lovely little website, 91.com, microsite, go there. You can understand the rationale for the brand.
But we had to differentiate because we are going to be different businesses. And this is the last time I wear a zebra tie at the results presentation. With Fani's permission, And Perry's permission, I'll be wearing the tie as an alumnus for many years to come, but I won't do it at presentations. And I think the reason for that the choice is a very simple choice. It's about obvious reason, the year we started, the year the world had momentous changes the end of the Soviet Union, the commercialization of the Internet, many, many other reasons.
And of course, for our English participants today, The birth of Siya Khaleesi, the Springbok rugby captain. We just have to remind them about this. But important for everyone, including our shareholders, We are changing our name, but we are not changing who we are. It will be the business you own and you experience that will go forward just in new colors. Our strategic priorities going forward are what you've become used to, what you understand and know, we continue to invest in That's why when the demerger brand decision was made, the asset management business had to get a new name because it is essentially a B2B business.
It deals with intermediaries, professional intermediaries rather than in clients. A bank and a wealth management business deals with individuals who have accounts and therefore would have been far more disruptive, which is why I gave up the fight for the zebra. But we all still love the Zebra, and we all still love what it stands for. I think what's important is And you'll see now at group level that we all are going to we are and have been embracing sustainability. It is probably the biggest change that's going Face ManKind after the recent technology change and the integration of China into the world economy.
I think the sustainability thing is going to be even bigger. I'll talk a little about that. And then finally, everything we do remains for the long term and for our clients. So at the next results presentation, when we talk about a 6 month, the 6 month or the year will always be in the context of the long term And the same holds for our Bank and Wealth business. So if we look at our group sustainability positioning, we have been taking this very, very seriously and we have an excellent actually excellent teams in the 2 units now.
But we measure up and we actually measure up better as a traded stock than our market cap representation in various indices. And I'm not going to go through all of these, but Tania De Santos and her team have worked really hard that Investec is reporting appropriately and reflected appropriately in the indices where obviously the large money will be flowing in the years to come, But also because we want to hang out with the right people, and we want to be in that crowd. And therefore, our actions are really important to take us even further. Fani has recently joined the UN CEO Alliance for Global Sustainable Global Investment sustainable development, supporting the goals, Investec has been the 1st banking group in South Africa to sign up to the TCFD, which is really important. If you want to go and read Fantastic that the task force has done fantastic work.
Go to their website. We're one of 8 banks in the U. K. To be part of that. In the asset management business, we have made a very significant or taken some very significant actions over the last 5 to 10 years.
ESG is fully integrated in our investment decision making process. We have recently launched a number of specialist sustainability strategies for clients who want to expose themselves to those. And then finally, we've been working on the development of impact strategies, which is, I guess the furthest you can go and develop in this area. And as a firm and as 2 entities now, we are really working hard to bring all our people along and make sure we are doing our bit to achieve the sustainability goals in time. I think finally, the demerger, you are probably tired to hear about it.
I introduced with it, so I'm not going to go back in detail except to say, as Fani said, There will be a circular coming out quite soon. It's a very thick document. It's an Investec document. It's not an Investec Asset Management becoming 91 or 91 document. That will be in the prospectus much more written about that business and its prospects, but it will give you the chance as shareholders to make a decision on the demerger.
I think importantly, there's a Capital Markets Day on the 3rd December For the asset management business, soon to become 91. For you, if you want to understand more about what you're going to get and what's going to be attributed to you. And finally, we look at Q1 to conclude the entire process And then tick off one of the strategic objectives Fani and I set out to achieve in our time together. And I think, Papan, we're going to do it in time and deliver on time. And our plans are clearly articulated in the 2 CMDs about the prospects and about the potential in our business.
So I just want to conclude before questions by pointing out. And finally, join me up here for questions, please. Nishlan, you are going to get the difficult question. Wait there, you need the books to answer. But we conclude to say our commitment to stakeholder value, including shareholders, it shouldn't be questioned, and we leave you hopefully with 2 independent businesses poised for long term growth.
And every action we've taken since we took the leadership informed by that to put the business on the right path for long term growth. And that sometimes means a little bit of pain in the near term. Thank you very, very much.
Thank you. Thank you, Anders.
Any questions? Can we go to London first? Ruben, you got you caught me last time. So I'm going to go to London so I have time to check to get my numbers right.
Hi, good morning. Ellen Jones from HSBC. My question is to do with Investec Plc and Bank Plc following the demerger. Is there are there any guidance on the regulatory capital changes and regulatory capital requirements following the demerger. And also, are there any plans for Perhaps an Opco Holdco collapse.
Thank you.
Thank you. With respect to capital. We had said earlier on when we had the CMD in February that out of the demeasure, we would expect that the capital position of Investec Plc will be enhanced. I cannot say any more than that. As Henrik said, the circular should be out very soon.
I think I used the words by the end of the month, which is equivalent to next week. So post the publication of the circular, we will hold a call where we can discuss, amongst other things, that issue and the impact on capital. So I'm afraid I can't go beyond that.
We can tell you that you shouldn't plan anything for the weekend at the end of November because the weekend might be spoiled with a rather thick document. I think there was a second part to the question, which is, was there a contemplation of collapsing the holding company structure in terms of the demerger.
The simple answer is no. The current structure, as we have it, remains. Obviously, at the time we did the strategic review, as the executive and the board, we did consider a number of these different alternatives. And what we have settled on is what makes the most sense for the business, so the structure remains as is.
No further questions here, Fani.
Thank you. Rudi here.
Yes. Maybe partly just one point. This shouldn't be confused with the I know sorry. The RMB Holdings and FirstRand Group followed our demerger suggestions or Rembrandt, I don't know who. But we don't have A classic holding company structure.
We have a DLC structure, and all we did, we demerged 1 of the major units To shareholders so they can just own 2 pieces of paper instead of 1. So it's not a classic collapse of structure because we never had a permanent structure in the true sense of the word.
Yes. And with respect to the DLC specifically, if we should be most clear about it, the DLC structure remains, and we had considered the question of whether we could or we should take it out, and that was not a viable option at all. Yes, thank you. I can leave the next one.
Rumi is going to come with a fast ball, so you go first. Any other questions here in South Africa? Just indicate and the microphone will follow.
Nisland, prepare yourself. Nisland,
We gave the books out late, so you couldn't find mistakes. Can I go ahead? Yes.
Mr. Titi, in discussing cost to income ratios, you referred to the Specialist Banking in the U. K. And Other And stated that reduction from the present 72.4 to the target of 65 Should be achieved by 2022. Now that reduction is a nice substantial 10% approximately, And it means that you mean business.
In discussing the previous Slide the Specialist Banking S. A. You made no mention specifically of the fact that the target It's going to go up from 49 to 52, which is a 5% increase. And further, in discussing the combined cost to income, Page 15. The bottom graph shows that the target is 65% From the present, 67.3 percent.
The reduction is just over 3%, which doesn't seem particularly demanding.
63 for the group going forward for the Bank and Wealth Group. But anyway, let me take the question. Well, let's get the question. I think
you Well, the for the combined group of 67.3% currently Down to the target of 65 doesn't seem particularly demanding, although the same graph says That revenue growth and cost containment remain priorities. Why have you not set a more, let's call it difficult target to achieve.
Okay. Let me just take them 1 by 1. I think you are right in saying that the level of improvement in the cost to income ratio in the U. K. Bank is quite significant.
We've already indicated in this period that David and the team and going forward, Ruth we'll continue to look at efficiencies. We have seen a reduction of 9.1% in operating costs in that business. 12. In these businesses, while cost containment is important, revenue growth at the back of serving clients is even more important. And thirdly, in that business specifically, scale is important.
So the combination in the UK business of continued efficiency gains. 2, continued prosecution of revenue initiatives like for instance, the private bank that we spoke about, the transactional banking piece of it, including high net worth mortgages and thirdly, the benefit of scale as we move forward. I think those 3 will lead to us achieving what you correctly say is quite a tight, a tough target. Moving on to the South African business. We indicated that the cost to income ratio is 49.5%.
The target for that business in terms of efficiency is 49% to 52%. Obviously, as a management team, we would always attempt to be at the lower end of that target, but obviously cost to income is a function of income and of cost, but that business manages costs quite effectively. We indicated a cost increase of 1.6% in an environment where inflation is above 4%. That, I think, is fantastic for that team to continue doing. The third question was whether the target for the group the Bank and Wealth Group is significant enough.
I think you went to where is that page? Where were you, really?
Right behind the wall.
Right behind This one. Yes. Okay. No, no, that's for the bank, I think. For the group, obviously
The reports are there, you see? Cost to income ratio, 7.
Yes, we've got that. So the combination of revenue again and cost control and the benefits of scale will take us there. I mean, obviously, In the mix, you also have your Wealth businesses, which run at higher cost to income ratios, just given the nature of the businesses they are. We will continue to work towards that target. You may not think it is tough.
In the medium term, that's the target, and we will look at it as we go. But our work indicates that it is not as easy as you may think it is at fast value. Remember that in the U. K, because you have the benefit of scale, because you have low scale and you are making significant inroads, you can make more significant reductions. To reduce that 65 to a much lower level, you would need to have significant improvements in the South African business.
We are not going to simply try cut costs for the sake of it when we are operating efficiently. And in fact, we always have to make sure that we invest in our infrastructure and people. Nishlan wants to take that.
Where's the mic for you?
Where's the mic? Where's the mic?
No, there. You can come up at the end of the mic because we can't all share one mic. While Nielsen comes up, Ruby, the one other thing is wealth businesses are going to run-in cost to income ratios In the 70s and in the high 70s actually rather than low because they have some margin contraction. If you look across the world, if you look at the all the businesses, you can see regulators are demanding more, etcetera. So it's sort of I think you must the combined target is difficult to look.
You must actually look at the separate targets. Nisland?
Yes. And I think just one final point is that in In the European market, particularly as well as the U. K. Market, you're operating at close to 0% interest rates, and that also has a fundamental influence.
The revenue side of it. Thanks, Nishlan. Any further questions? Ruby, I hope that's your bouncer, and from now on, we can have it a bit
easy. Any other questions? I think then we Can adjourn for a cup of coffee or a cup of tea.
I mean, Hendrik, maybe before we do, let me just thank the people of Investec who have put in the work on our behalf to produce these numbers in very difficult environments. The South African environment is not easy for both clients and for our staff, and people have worked extremely hard to keep our clients happy. And with respect to the 2 teams, there has been substantial amounts of work that needed to be done on the demeasure and that both teams have concentrated on serving our clients during a period of change is really particularly important. Lastly, let me thank Hendrik for the work we've been doing over the last 18 months or so in making sure that the transition from the founders and Stephen is looking at me from the front here. The transition from the founders to this new leadership is smooth, and we can move into the next stage where we have 2 very iconic businesses well poised for long term and sustainable growth and value creation for all our stakeholders.
It takes a lot in these environments to do the work that has been done. So thank you all. And to our shareholders, thank you for your support. Henrik, thank you.
Thank you, Fanny. Thank you, guys.