You've had your minute, I'm going to go. Michelin? Stephen, I think you can go now. Okay.
Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to our pre class briefing. I think if we look at the operating environment, Kenny, we're in 2 geographies where there's quite a lot of uncertainty. And I think that Okay.
The U. K, obviously, there's a lot of uncertainty around Brexit. Brexit inflation has been rising, and there's A bit of a squeeze on household spending. So we're expecting lower growth among economists, but I listened to my colleague here, Philip Shaw. And then I think the South African economy came out of recession in the second quarter, but business and consumer confidence are very low.
And that's really because we have a very challenging political environment at this point in time. So On the other hand, we've had supportive stock markets, and I think that would have helped the overall results. We've also had Supportive currency. If we look at an overview of the 6 months, I think our Wealth and Investment business is expected to Report results come to the end of the prior period. And while the Asset Management business is expected to report results In line with the prior period.
I'll give you a little bit of color as to why in a moment. But both divisions have benefited from Higher average funds in the management and obviously, the favorable equity markets as well both have benefited from sound net inflows. I think the Specialist Banking businesses expect to report results ahead of the prior year. South Africa, well over the prior year. UK, well, it's behind the prior year, and I'll give you a little bit of color on that in a moment.
So a little bit mixed, but We have had support from the currency. We do expect revenue to be ahead of the prior year. We our recurring income will be about 75% of our total income. Expenses are growing in line as a consequence of Quite a lot of planned investment, which we spoke about at the end with regard to banking infrastructure And building our client franchise businesses. And then as well, we have double rent in this particular period.
We shouldn't have in the same period Last year, which has affected the UK bank results in particular. So overall, we Our operating profit to be comfortably ahead of the prior year. If we look at our Key earnings drivers. I think 3rd party asset management have increased 6.1% to GBP 160,000,000 that was at the end of August. Clearly, we still got a few weeks to go, and that could still be affected by both markets and exchange rate.
But that's an annualized growth of just under 15%. Customer deposits up 1.3%, £29,500,000. Again, we have been managing our excess liquidity to try and bring our cost of funds down, and we are seeing some benefit on that front. And then core lines and advances, 4.5%, that's just under 11% annualized growth. And that comes from, At this point in time, primarily the South African business with a bit of growth in the UK business that we are expecting Reasonable growth for the half year to GBP 23,700,000,000.
The balance sheet that we're talking about, which is the end of August, We have had very little exchange record. We've had very little effect on the balance sheet as the Rand Power exchange record is almost identical At March August, it has since weakened in the last week. The 2 now was followed up, so we don't know where it lands up. If we look at liquidity, I think we've continued to maintain sound liquidity levels. Our cost of funds in the UK continues to decline, And that is a planned strategy, and we're making good traction on that.
Advances of the Centrica customer deposits were 79%. So we have Let's go with some of our liquidity, as mentioned earlier, to try and improve our cost of funds. On the capital front, Investec Limited Still slightly below our target of 10%. And while Investec Plc is Well, you're now well ahead of our target. We're not worried about Investec Limited because we are on a migration to what we the advanced method, AIRB.
And we put in our application in August last year, and we're in the process of the Central Bank. So we do expect ARBTB implemented sometime in 2018 calendar year, whether it's 1st April, whether it's 1st July, sometime during that period, and that will add quite a lot of additional capital surplus capital because our risk weights will go up anywhere between now shoot me for saying this, Bob, but 1.5% to 1.7%. So that will be the improvement in our capital ratios. Our leverage ratios are still well ahead of our target of 6%, And that's on a fully loaded basis. So we're very comfortable with our liquidity and capital position on impairment.
We do expect time payments to be ahead of the prior period. I think on a number of fronts, I think our legacy portfolio He's marginally hit slightly ahead of the prior period, and that's because we are anticipating acceleration Of clearing of some of that book. And hopefully, we'll see a lot of progress on that in the next 6 months. I think Impairments in South Africa are expected to be ahead of the prior year and in the ongoing business, although the ratio It's still at the very low end of our long term range. So we expect the credit loss charge to be about 0.5% to 2.55 Percent during this period.
I think if we look at our divisions, I think Asset Management had positive net inflows of GBP 1,900,000,000 up to the end of August. I think Earnings are supported by market levels. I think we had solid net inflows, offset by lower performance fees in South Africa. And I think that's The reason why Asset Management is flat will be flat overall is because performance fees in South Africa were lower. And not to stand with the fact that we've had quite good performance, that's remember, in the previous period, we said performance was a little bit weak there.
It has turned around. So we are seeing very good long term performance and a strong Quite a strong short term performance in recent months. So they've broken the GBP 100,000,000,000 mark, they're up 7.2 percent £102,000,000,000 at the end of August. I think on Wealth, Performance of the global business is well ahead of the prior year. We've seen higher average funds under management inflows of £200,000,000 I think earnings in South Africa has been impacted by lower activity levels, while the UK business has had a very strong performance.
So You're seeing a different story in the 2 geographies. And I think South Africa is impacted by Not balances, but by confidence levels. Click and Invest was successfully launched in June 2017. That is a defensive strategy. It will be a long road before we see a lot of benefit from it, but we have received a lot of positive input from All commentators.
So funds under management at GBP 57,100,000,000 At the end of August. Going to the Specialist Bank, I think as we said, results are expected to be ahead of the prior year. On net interest income, that is up supported by book growth. In the UK, strongly up. South Africa, down slightly.
And that's, again, always a little bit of noise in net interest income. We also have had cost of foreign liabilities as a consequence of the downgrade affecting that number. So it won't be down much, but it is down Rightly. And U. K.
Also benefiting from the reduction in cost of funds. If we look at investment Associates trading and other operating income that will be ahead of the prior year, strong performance from the South African investment portfolio, including our equity accounted earnings, Investec Equity Partners impacted by lease realizations in the UK investment portfolio. And then trading income from cost to customer flow, I think, was down in this period as a consequence of Lower levels of volatility. If you remember last year, we had Brexit. July would have been a very active kind of month.
And there was quite very good levels of Relative to what we're seeing in a much lower volatility environment. On fees and commissions, I think, again, Good performance from the South African Corporate Treasure and Structuring Businesses. In the UK, we had a very First half last year in the Investment Bank. So we've seen this Investment Banking and Securities activity Or for that, we're very strong period last year. Still a reasonable amount of activity, but not quite as strong as the first half last year.
And then on costs, As I said, we have a deliberate strategy of investing in infrastructure, building out some of our franchises, in particular, The building of the private client offering in the UK. And obviously, we're moving to new premises in London. This would have had And the impact on the cost line, although they're growing more or less in line with I would say in this part of the business, overall in line with revenue This part of the business still the investment is a little bit faster than revenue. We'll get to legacy. We expect legacy loss to be modestly ahead of the prior period Off the back of anticipated acceleration of sales of a portion of the book, we are trying to accelerate Getting its legacy down.
And hopefully, you'll see a lot of progress by the end of the year. So we are making good progress, but we expect to Really back to back of it, either by the end of this year or by the end of next year. We expect the book to be £30,000,000 or thereabouts by the end of March I mean, end of September. I think other information, our tax rate is down. We've had provisions no longer required, so we'll have a lower tax rate.
That's not a It's just in this particular period of 15%. Noncontrolling interest of GBP 32,000,000 that's both related to minorities in the Asset Management business and the consolidation of our property fund, and we expect number of shares in issue to be GBP 924 €1,000,000 roughly. So in conclusion, I think the geopolitical environment has been challenging With a lot of uncertainty prevailing in our core geographies, I think the you've got buzz from the complexity of Brexit As well as the South African political environment is very unsteady at the moment in the run up to the December elections, ruling party elections, which You have a lot of impact on direction of the country. I think we have had some support from global markets and improved outlook for The global economy, we've had, I would say, decent activity levels. Our client base has demonstrated a lot of resilience in the environment.
We continue to see positive overall performance driven by diverse revenue streams and very strong franchise businesses. I think we will continue to focus on execution of our strategic initiatives, mindful of the fact that we're in a tough macro environment And there could be a lot of uncertainty in the second half. But overall, we are very comfortable where we are as a firm. We've always got work to do, I think we're making a significant amount of progress. So that is a quick summary.
I'm happy to take questions. We can start In South Africa, Michelin? Yes. Thanks, Stephen. Are there any questions about you?
Steven, no questions? Nothing. What's wrong with you? Okay. London?
I think you want early tea. Is that it? Okay. Well, we'll see you in November. Thank you.