Good day, investors. I'm Mike Smith, CFO of PSG Financial Services, and pleased to have this opportunity to share with you our latest interim results for the six months ended 31 August 2023. I'm going to run through our overall financial results, then go through our divisional performance, list some of our focus areas, take you through some of our return and trading sets, then finally conclude. PSG's structure remains unchanged. However, we did change the name of the company from PSG Konsult to PSG Financial Services with effect from the 1st of September, as previously announced. Three core divisions are 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.
During the six-month period, we increased our advisor base by 14 to 961 advisors. We operate from 269 offices throughout South Africa and Namibia. 63% of our advisor force are wealth advisors and the remaining 37% are insure advisors. If we now turn on to a look at our business characteristics. Number 1, we are equity market dependent, as a substantial portion of the fees that we earn are linked to the value of our client assets we manage and administer. We're also administrative platform and process dependent, particularly in our wealth platform area and our insure platform area. We continue to grow our own talent and during this six-month period, appointed 32 newly qualified graduates, which we brought into the firm. Actually our cash earnings we generated exceed our reported earnings because we have certain non-cash flow items.
For example, ZAR 36.9 million of non-cash flow intangible asset amortization costs. We have 21 regulatory licenses, 17 in South Africa, and four foreign licenses. We're also a regulated controlling company as well, and therefore are vulnerable to regulatory change and therefore have various teams monitoring regulation to ensure that we're on the forefront. If we then have a look at some of the macroeconomic indicators, which give you useful context to assess and evaluate our performance. First of all, what one has seen globally is an upward trend in interest rates as central banks have tried to reduce inflation. During the period under review, we saw the rand against the US dollar decline by 11%.
The S&P 500 was up 27% in rand terms. That's due to a combination of the devaluation of the rand, plus positive market performance, with the JSE index increased by 11% and the cash and bond index by 7%. Turning across to our overall financial results. The top-line revenue growth that we achieved continued to be the key driver of our performance. With our assets under management growing from ZAR 317 billion to ZAR 376 billion. That increase of 19% was achieved through a combination of market performance, which were good investment outcomes our client enjoyed, plus we brought in ZAR 9.5 billion of positive net flows between wealth and asset management during the period under review. Our premium income increased by 12% to ZAR 3.4 billion. Our overall headline earnings increased by 18% to ZAR 482 billion.
Our weighted average number of shares, that declined by 3%. The reason for that is that we repurchased and canceled 9.7 million shares at a cost of ZAR 120.6 million, which was part of our capital optimization. This translated into us delivering a 21% increase in headline earnings per share. Our headline earnings per share were ZAR 0.376. We remain confident about the firm's long-term growth prospects, therefore continue to invest in both technology and people. Compared to the previous comparable period, our technology and infrastructure spend increased by 12%. We continue to fully expense those costs. While our fixed remuneration costs grew by 12%. I'm going to take you through our divisional performance. If you look at our overall divisional performance, Wealth contributed 65% of the firm's earnings at ZAR 313 million.
Asset Management contributed 21% of our earnings at ZAR 100 million. Insure brought in 14% of our earnings at ZAR 69 million. PSG Wealth, they achieved earnings growth of 18%, key driver being the 14% increase in management and other recurring fees we earned, while transactional and brokerage fees decreased by 10% due to lower trading activity. PSG Asset Management, they achieved a 23% growth in earnings. Management fees were up 20%. This more than offset the decline that we had in our variable performance fees. PSG Insure, they achieved a 12% growth in earnings. We continue to focus growth on the commercial line side, which requires our specialist advisor expertise. I'm now going to take you through really our 10-year track record, which I think are the key metrics one should really look at to evaluate the business.
If you look at our compound annual growth that we've achieved over the past 10 years, first of all, the top line, you'll see assets under management. We've had a 17% compound annual growth rate of assets under management over the past 10 years. In the most recent 12-month period, those are up 19% to ZAR 376 billion. Our premiums, we've grown those by 19% over the past 10 years. There, if I look at our recurring headline earnings, that is up 18% over that period. Recurring headline earnings per share is up 17% over the past 10 years and 21% in the most recent period. Our dividend per share, we've increased as well by 12% and up 23% in the most recent period. Return on equity delivered 22.5% during this period.
We've had five credit rating upgrades during that period, strengthened our SCR ratio, and grown both our advisor and employees over that period. What I want to then touch on, the group decided to declare a dividend of ZAR 0.135 of gross dividend, which is within our target range of between 40%-60% of recurring headline earnings, excluding intangible assets. What we're very pleased with is the sequential growth that we've delivered in both earnings and dividend per share over the past decade, which is really a testimony to a great firm, which is aimed at carefully managing risk and delivering strong shareholder returns. I'm going to now discuss the Wealth results. If you look at the Wealth business, an important line to focus on is our managed assets.
Those increased from ZAR 305 billion to ZAR 325 billion through a combination of ZAR 12 billion of positive market movement and ZAR 7.7 billion of positive net flows. The positive market movement shows that our clients and investors have received good investment outcomes, and we've continued to grow the business. If we look at our weighted average managed client assets, as indicated in the footnote there, they were up 16%, and that is really the key number on which the revenue is earned. We also pleased to note that PSG Wealth was recognized as a wealth manager of the year for the fifth consecutive year in the 2023 Intellidex Top Private Bank and Wealth Manager Awards, and the division also won the Executive Lump Sum Investor and Retiree Archetype category. The stockbroking business was also placed first in the Executive Archetype Latest Stockbroker award ceremony that took place in September 2023.
If we look at the wealth business, over that past five years, they've brought in ZAR 70.5 billion of managed client asset net flows. I think that really shows that one has put in place a good product, good client service, and that was really sustained through the investments that we've made in enhancing client experience, our high caliber advisors that we have, and the excellent client relationships and service levels that we provided to clients. PSG Wealth will continue to advise clients to focus on the long-term goals and maintain diversified portfolios, especially during these volatile and uncertain times. If we look at the wealth side, we increased our number of advisors by 13 from 590 to 603. We actually had 38 new joiners during the past six months and 25 advisors left us. I now get to touch on to asset management.
Asset management, assets under management grew to ZAR 50.3 billion, largely because of the ZAR 1.7 billion of net inflows that they brought in. However, their weighted average assets under management were up 17% to ZAR 48.9 billion, as illustrated in the note there. Our total assets administered increased by 6% to ZAR 209 billion, which included ZAR 3.4 billion of multi-manager net flows. If we look at asset management, there you can once again see the ZAR 1.7 billion of net flows that they brought in during the most recent six-month period. Asset management continues to engage with clients on the merits of its 3M investment philosophy and the importance of staying in the market throughout the investment cycle. The division has an enviable long-term investment track record, with most of our funds performing in the top quartile over a three-year period.
At the last Raging Bull Awards ceremony, PSG Asset Management received six awards, including the coveted South Africa Manager of the Year award. This is testimony to the team's ability to manage the full spectrum of multi-asset funds. I move on to PSG Insure. PSG Insure achieved overall premium income growth if one compares H1 2023 with H1 2024 of 11%, and Western over that period achieved a 19% increase in premium income. The division continues to focus on profitable growth with an emphasis on commercial lines type of business, which requires advisor expertise. Western also won the Non-Life Insurer of the Year award in the commercial area for the second year at the FIA Intermediary Experience Awards. On the insurer side, we have 358 advisors. During this period, we had 15 joiners and 14 lost advisors.
If we now look at Western, their goal remains profitable growth, which they've achieved through their prudent and disciplined underwriting practices. Western achieved a 19% growth in gross written premium and a 9% underwriting margin. The current period results were adversely impacted by the Boksburg earthquake and the Western Cape storms during June 2023. Still pleasing results from the division. Moving on to some of our focus areas. The firm continued to focus on top-line revenue growth. We achieved a 17% overall top-line revenue growth, with Wealth being up 14%, Asset Management up 22%, Insure up 18%. The group still has relatively low market shares and therefore remains confident about its strategy and prospects for future growth. We continue to monitor and evaluate our business performance, focusing on three core metrics: recurring revenues, our profit margins, and unit of risk relative to the return that we earn.
Performance fees contributed 2.5% of headline earnings versus 3.7% in the prior comparative period. We generated return on equity of 22.5%, and the group has no interest-bearing debt, which adds to the group's strong financial position and excellent liquidity. Now I'm going to touch on some return and trading stats. The above table depicts the investment returns that a shareholder would have earned during the past 18 years, where they invested their dividends relative to the JSE All Share Index. One can see where an investor placed initially ZAR 100,000 in PSG Financial Services, reinvested all their dividends over that period. The investment would have grown to over ZAR 7.2 million, where if they had placed ZAR 100,000 in the JSE All Share Index, the investment would have grown to only ZAR 992,000.
If you now look at our P/E ratios and ROE trends, I think what we're particularly pleased with is the return on equity that we've generated net of CPI, 17.7% return net of inflation. I think a good achievement. If we look at some of our trading stats, and a bit more details on our shareholders, at present, 50% of shares are held by institutional shareholders, and we've got overall number of shareholders of about 18,500. Our market cap of ZAR 18 billion ranks us 74th on the JSE. Investors, I now want to give some final concluding remarks that we believe underpin our expectations of future success. Number one, we've got a formidable advisor network in South Africa with a broad geographic footprint that continues to expand. We have strong governance structures, clear growth opportunities for our business, and history of delivering superior shareholder returns.
Our focus remains optimizing our risk-adjusted return per share. That's why we continue to be restrictive of the issuance of new shares. Finally, investors, I want to thank you for your time. Look forward to sharing with you our results later in the year when we've completed. Thank you once again.