Listed insurance giant Mutual & Federal Insurance Company said on Monday that it expected its earnings per share and headline earnings per share for the six months ended 30 June 2008 to be 50 percent to 70 percent lower than those of the prior corresponding period.

This followed "a comparatively lower level of gains on listed equities and a subdued underwriting result," it said in a statement on SENS.

Mutual and Federal's annual report recently showed that the company expected to retrench 623 of its employees over the next eight months, bringing down the number of people in its workforce to 2055.

At the end of last year, 3311 people were employed at the insurance company, while this number tumbled to 2678 by May 2008.

Sapa