Good day, investors. I'm Mike Smith, Chief Financial Officer of PSG Financial Services, and pleased to have the opportunity to share with you our latest interim financial results for the six months ended 31 August 2024. I'm going to run through our overall financial results, then move through to our divisional performance, touch on some focus areas, run through some return and trading stats, and finally conclude. If you look at PSG Financial Services, we have an unchanged group structure. Three divisions: PSG Wealth, PSG Asset Management, and PSG Insure. PSG remains an advice-led business with a broad geographic footprint, which enables us to service our clients where they reside. We have 957 advisors operating from 265 offices throughout South Africa and Namibia. 66% of our advisor force are wealth advisors, and the remaining 34% are insure advisors.
If you look at our business characteristics, number one, we're equity market dependent, as a substantial portion of the fees we earn are linked to the value of our client assets we manage and administer. Our administrative and platform businesses are people and system dependent, and we continue to attract entrepreneurial people with a can-do attitude. We're also proud of the progress we've made in growing our own talent. We had 77 newly qualified graduates that joined us during the past six-month period. The firm continues to generate strong cash flows, with our cash earnings actually exceeding our reported earnings due to certain non-cash items, including a ZAR 38 million of intangible asset amortization cost. We have 21 regulatory licenses, 17 in South Africa and four in foreign jurisdictions. PSG Financial Services is licensed as an insurance group controlling company, which makes us vulnerable to regulatory change.
If I then run through a couple of macroeconomic indicators, which I think are important background to consider when you evaluate our results. Overall, what we have seen is global interest rates have started to trend downwards as central banks have largely achieved their inflation rate band target objectives. This has contributed to improved global investor confidence and sentiment. The rand has strengthened by 6% against the US dollar, whilst the average rand-US dollar exchange rate as range has been relatively stable. It was 18.47 during the current period. In the previous comparable period was 18.53. The South African economy experienced less disruption from load shedding and a slight improvement in GDP growth during the period under review. The market reacted positively to the formation of the Government of National Unity following our recent national elections.
The improved confidence that we've seen both from business and consumers has contributed positively. First of all, the JSE index is up 12%. The property index in South Africa is up 29%, All Bond up 19%, and the S&P 500 in rand terms up 17%. We at PSG has capitalized on this favorable environment. What this enabled us to deliver was a 28% growth in headline earnings per share, a 16% growth in assets under management, and a return on equity of 26.2%. The firm remains confident about its long-term growth prospects. We therefore continue to invest in technology and people. Compared to the prior comparable period, our technology and infrastructure costs increased by 20%, and these costs we continue to fully expense, while our fixed remuneration costs grew by 14%.
We also saw a reduction in our weighted average number of shares due to the repurchase and cancellation of shares as part of our capital optimization. I then run through our divisional earnings. Divisional profit contribution split. The PSG Wealth division contributed 58% of our earnings, PSG Asset Management 26%, and PSG Insure 16%. PSG Wealth achieved a 13% growth in earnings to ZAR 355 million. This was delivered really because of a strong increase that they saw in management and other recurring fees. Although we had a slight decrease in our brokerage income due to lower trading activity. PSG Insure, they achieved a 41% increase in earnings with a 10% increase in gross written premium.
Whilst PSG Asset Management achieved a 57% increase in earnings, driven by a 15% rise in management fees, as well as higher performance fees, which contributed 6% to the firm's overall headline earnings, with only 2.5% in the comparable period. We're pleased, though, if you look at over the past five years, all of the businesses have grown well. One can see the compound growth over that five years. PSG Wealth up 13%, PSG Asset Management up 34%, and PSG Insure up 11%, achieving an overall compound growth of 16%. We then move across to our 10-year track record. We continue to manage and evaluate the firm's performance against an unchanged set of metrics. Our 10-year track record clearly highlights the sequential improvement that we've delivered on all of our key metrics.
First of all, if you look at our assets under management, have grown by 15% over the past 10 years, and in the most recent period, up 16%. You look at recurring headline earnings, up 15% over the past 10 years and 26% during this period. Our dividend per share, we've increased by 14% over the past 10 years.
Our credit rating has also increased five times during that period, and we've strengthened our SCR ratio. Really, if you look at the sequential growth in earnings, dividends per share that we've delivered over the past decade, I think is a testimony to a great firm aimed at carefully managing risk and delivering strong shareholder returns. I am going to run through some of the divisional performance. First of all, in the PSG Wealth business, our wealth advisors' client assets increased from ZAR 355 billion to ZAR 379 billion during this period.
This represented ZAR 13.8 billion of positive market movement, as well as ZAR 10.3 billion of positive net inflows. Our weighted average value of managed client assets was ZAR 368 billion. This is up 16% from the prior period. PSG Wealth was also recognized as Wealth Manager of the Year, Large Institutions at the Krutham's 2024 Wealth Manager of the Year Award for the sixth consecutive year. This year, we also were recognized as the top overall broker for large institutions by Krutham. We look at over the past five years, the PSG Wealth business has secured ZAR 84 billion of managed client asset net flows. Really, our sustained investment in digital capabilities aimed at enhancing our client experience has enabled our high caliber advisors to maintain excellent client relationships and service levels, which is a key driver of our success.
PSG Wealth continues to advise clients to focus on their long-term goals and maintain diversified portfolios, especially during volatile and uncertain times, one can see this has delivered good outcomes both for our clients and for us as a firm. We look at on the wealth side, we had a net increase of 20 wealth advisors during the past six months. We had 39 new joiners and 19 advisors left us. I move across to asset management, PSG Asset Management grew assets under management by 10% from ZAR 56.6 billion, this was achieved by, first of all, ZAR 4.1 billion of positive market growth and ZAR 687 million of positive net client inflows. Our weighted average assets under management was up 11% at ZAR 54.4 billion. Our total assets administered by the wealth division increased by 7% to ZAR 244 billion.
This was supported by ZAR 7.5 billion of multi-manager net inflows. Asset management. This graph really depicts the net flows that the business has experienced over the past five years on a six-monthly basis. This graph highlights ZAR 687 million of positive net flows that the business brought in. You look at asset management, I think they've got an enviable long-term investment track record with, you look at all of our key funds, delivered top quartile performance, especially in the three and five-year period. The relative weaker one-year performance is due to us having low exposure to certain technology shares, which were a big market driver during this current period. The division has received five specific awards and came second place in the South Africa Manager of the Year award category at the most recent Raging Bull Awards.
You look at the insurer business, what this graph shows is that we've managed to grow our premium and top-line revenue in each of the businesses. Our focus remains growing the business by picking up profitable new business and with a greater emphasis on the commercial lines type of the business, which requires advisor expertise. Western received Non-Life Insurer of the Year Commercial Award for the third consecutive year in the 2024 FIA Intermediary Experience Awards ceremony. On the insurer advisor side, we have 329 advisors. During the current period, we lost 16 advisors as we continue to focus more on the commercial lines side of the business. You look at Western National, their goal remains profitable growth, which is achieved through our prudent and disciplined underwriting practices. Western achieved during the current period, a 12% growth in gross written premium and a 9% underwriting margin.
We're satisfied with the consistent underwriting margins Western has achieved during these challenging conditions, we experienced during this period three catastrophe events. First of all, Western Cape flooding and storms, which took place in April and July. We also had a large fire claim. I think due to our disciplined and well-structured underwriting practices, we still delivered a 9% underwriting margin. We move on then to some of our focus areas. Overall top-line revenue growth of 14% was achieved. Wealth 13%, asset management 30%, and insurer 12%. The group still has relatively small market shares. Therefore, we remain confident about our strategy and prospects for future growth. We continue to monitor and evaluate our overall business, focusing on three core metrics. Number one, recurring revenues, profit margins, and then also the unit of risk relative to our return on equity.
Performance fees during this period contributed 6% of headline earnings. In the previous comparable period was 2.5%, generated a return on equity of 26.2%, and the group has no interest-bearing debt, which adds to our strong financial position and excellent liquidity. Going to touch on a couple of return and trading stats. What this graph or this table depicts is investment returns a shareholder would have enjoyed who invested ZAR 100,000 in the business 19 years ago. Each time we paid out a dividend, reinvested the dividend back into PSG Financial Services shares. The ZAR 100,000 would've grown to just over ZAR 9.1 million. If the investor put the ZAR 100,000 in the JSE over that period, also reinvested all the dividends, your investment would've grown to ZAR 1.1 million.
I think, this table clearly depicts the very good overall returns that we've delivered for shareholders, both in rand terms and dollar terms. The next table really shows that the return on equity that we've delivered net of inflation during the most recent period was 21.8%. This table also illustrates the growth in our share price, which over this period is 20.5%, very closely correlated to the growth in our headline earnings per share that we've delivered over the long term as well. Finally, some trading stats there. 51% of our shares are currently held by institutional shareholders. PSG Financial Services has over 17,700 shareholders, got a market cap of ZAR 23.1 billion, and we ranked 68th on the JSE. That was at the end of September. Finally, a couple of concluding remarks.
Number one, we've got a formidable advisor network in South Africa, a broad geographic footprint that we continue to expand, got strong governance structures, clear growth opportunities for the business, got a history of delivering superior shareholder returns, and very much focused on optimizing our risk-adjusted return per share. Thank you, investors, for listening to me, and wish you a good day.