Old Mutual Brand Guidelines: An 1845 Cape Mutual, an Art Deco Tower and OM Bank

A Scotsman, 166 policyholders and no capital.

Old Mutual began in Cape Town in 1845. The company says a Scotsman named John Fairbairn founded The Mutual Life Assurance Society of the Cape of Good Hope with no initial capital other than the premiums of its first 166 policyholders. English Wikipedia adds that he was joined by several other prominent Cape Town figures, among them Saul Solomon. As a mutual, the society was owned by its policyholders rather than by shareholders.

The company gives its early motto as “a certain friend in uncertain times.” In 1885 the society changed its name to The South Africa Mutual Life Assurance Society. English Wikipedia’s article on its old head office says it became known simply as “the Old Mutual,” to tell it apart from newer businesses of the same kind. The group trades as Old Mutual today.

The society grew beyond the Cape. The same article says it employed women as early as 1901, expanded into Namibia in 1920 and into Zimbabwe, then Rhodesia, in 1927. Through the twentieth century it also took stakes in other financial businesses. In 1970 it acquired a major shareholding in the newly formed Mutual & Federal, a general insurer, and bought the remaining shares in 2009; Mutual & Federal was renamed Old Mutual Insure on 5 June 2017, English Wikipedia says. In 1973 Old Mutual took a shareholding in Nedcor Bank, renamed the Nedbank Group in 2005.

The mutual era ended in 1999. The company says that between May and July of that year Old Mutual was demutualised and Old Mutual plc was listed on the London, Johannesburg, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Namibia stock exchanges. English Wikipedia adds that it set up a head office in London at the same time.

Strength, Security and Confidence in the Future.

The clearest design statement in Old Mutual’s history is a building. In the 1930s, English Wikipedia says, the society decided it needed a new head office and set ambitious targets: the tallest building in South Africa, the fastest lifts and the largest windows. It was also meant to express the values the society chose for it, “Strength, Security and Confidence in the Future.” Its designers travelled to study corporate buildings in the United States, South America, England and Sweden.

The result was the Mutual Building on Darling Street, labelled on its exterior in both English and Afrikaans as the Mutual Building and Mutual Gebou. It was built in the art deco style, with a stepped ziggurat top, prism-shaped windows and a carved stone frieze that English Wikipedia calls one of the longest in the world; the banking hall was finished in a neo-classical style meant to underline the society’s long-standing values. English Wikipedia’s article on the building says it was completed in 1939 and opened early in 1940, with a sixteen-page supplement in the local paper; its article on the company gives 1939 for the opening. The historian Federico Freschi, quoted there, called it “at once a worthy monument to modern design principles and the consolidation of an important corporate and public image.”

The society did not stay long. From the late 1950s it moved in stages to Mutualpark in Pinelands, which English Wikipedia says was at the time the largest office block in the southern hemisphere. The Darling Street tower has since been converted into apartments and renamed Mutual Heights, with its banking hall now used as an events venue.

Old Mutual’s public image today also comes through sponsorship. English Wikipedia lists the Old Mutual National Choir Festival in South Africa and Old Mutual Amazing Voices, a pan-African music competition series made for DStv and M-Net channels, as well as bursaries for school leavers and actuarial students at South African universities. The company’s pages do not set out a typeface or colour code for its mark, and the palette in this guide is our own.

African insurers and their names.

Africa’s insurers often carry their history in their names. Some of the oldest were founded in Afrikaans or English and still trade under those words or their acronyms: Sanlam’s name is built from the Afrikaans title it was registered under in 1918, and Old Mutual’s comes from a nickname for a Cape Town society of 1845. Others work in Swahili- and French-speaking markets, and pan-African groups such as SanlamAllianz present their pages in both English and French.

The visual language is usually simple: a wordmark or a monogram, a shield or an emblem, and a small set of corporate colours, with greens, blues, reds and golds common across the sector. Few of these companies publish their colour codes or typefaces, so the palettes in these guides are our own interpretations rather than official values. Brand pages tend to lean on photography of families, workplaces and communities rather than on product images, because the products themselves are policies.

Those policies are organised in familiar ranges: life cover, health cover, motor and property cover, family cover, savings, retirement and investments, alongside business and corporate lines. Many groups sell through branches, tied agents and brokers as well as online, and several have moved into banking or mobile services; Old Mutual, for example, launched the digital-only OM Bank in 2025, and Sanlam announced a banking partnership in 2026. Mobile money and USSD menus are part of how some insurers reach customers who do not use apps.

Listed groups also speak through their reports. Integrated reports, results presentations and sustainability reports set out structure, ownership and strategy, and stock exchange listings in Johannesburg, Windhoek, Nairobi, Lagos and elsewhere keep a record of mergers and joint ventures. This guide sets out what those sources show for each company, and marks what rests only on a company’s own word.

From a London-listed group to Old Mutual Limited.

After 1999 the group grew well beyond Africa. The company says Old Mutual plc completed its acquisition of the Swedish insurer Skandia in February 2006, and English Wikipedia describes its UK, European, Latin American and Asian businesses in those years. In March 2016 Old Mutual plc announced a strategy it called managed separation: splitting its four businesses, Old Mutual Emerging Markets, Nedbank, the UK-based Old Mutual Wealth and the Boston-based Old Mutual Asset Management, into standalone companies.

The split was carried out in 2018. In June that year, the company says, Old Mutual Limited listed on the Johannesburg, London, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Namibia stock exchanges. Old Mutual Wealth was demerged as Quilter plc, and on 15 October 2018 Old Mutual unbundled its majority shareholding in Nedbank, completing the managed separation, English Wikipedia says. The head office moved to Sandton the same year, and in April 2019 the company sold its Latin American businesses.

Banking is the newest part of the brand. English Wikipedia says Old Mutual applied for a South African banking licence in 2022, which the Prudential Authority granted in 2024, and that the digital-only OM Bank opened to the public in September 2025. In September 2026 the South African news service EWN reported the chief executive saying OM Bank expected to pass a million customers within weeks, and that the bank was being built into the group’s products, advice networks and branches, with the lending business and branches merged into it. In January 2026, English Wikipedia says, South Africa’s Competition Tribunal approved Old Mutual’s purchase of a majority stake in the Cape Town investment firm 10X Investments.

The insurance side is also changing. In November 2026 Reinsurance News reported that Swiss Re Corporate Solutions had agreed to transfer its South African insurance portfolio to Old Mutual Insure, subject to regulatory approvals; the transfer was announced in November 2026 and had not been completed at the time of writing. The company says the group today serves customers in 12 countries.

For a design guide, Old Mutual shows how a nickname and a building can outlast the institution that produced them. Compare Nedbank, the bank it held for decades, and Sanlam, another Cape Town life office that demutualised in the same years. For this guide we use a green, a stone and a bronze with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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