THIRD AGE GROUP: A South African Growth Story Built on Resilience and Reinvention

Third Age Group is not a business that arrived fully formed. It is the product of steady evolution, hard lessons, and a willingness to build capability where gaps existed rather than outsource accountability. From its beginnings servicing a small group of medical professionals, the business has grown into a diversified South African group with interests spanning financial services, insurance, investments, agriculture, property, and specialist management services.

Today, Third Age Group employs more than 500 people and operates through a web of integrated businesses that feed into one another, creating resilience, optionality, and long-term value. At the centre of that growth story is CEO Duncan Cairns, whose hands-on approach and appetite for complexity continue to shape the group’s direction.

“We have been very fortunate in the last few years,” Cairns tells Enterprise Africa. “Our profit has grown impressively, and we saw growth in the mid-30% percentages year-on-year. In 2024, we saw 43% growth, and in 2025 we grew 42%.”

That performance has been driven not by a single standout division, but by a deliberate diversification strategy designed to weather volatility and unlock opportunity across multiple sectors.

A BROAD BASE

Third Age Group’s footprint reflects a belief that sustainable growth comes from balance rather than dependence. The group has spread its risk effectively, but financial services remain its largest revenue contributor.

“We are a diverse business and we have interests in property, farming, insurance, investments, stockbroking, financial management accounting, and our biggest division is in financial services on the short-term premium side,” explains Cairns. “There, we manage just over R1 billion in insurance premiums.”

Rather than operate as a loose collection of assets, the group has pursued deep integration. Minority stakes in brokerages are paired with operational support, governance, and management expertise, allowing businesses to scale while remaining entrepreneurial.

“We are very integrated and we buy into brokerages, taking a minority stake, helping to manage them and bringing business expertise to the table,” Cairns says. “We are also linked to Underwriting Management Agencies (UMAs) and cell captives and other industry models.”

The holding structure provides room for experimentation while maintaining discipline. “The group consists of 10 core companies within which there are many more operating divisions,” he adds. “We are gaining good traction, especially across our farming operations where we are attracting good investment.”

This model aligns with broader research on South African business resilience, which consistently highlights diversification, strong governance, and cashflow management as critical success factors in a volatile economic environment.

BUILT FROM NECESSITY

Third Age Group has built its structure around solving problems for people while maximising opportunities. It was forged through necessity, as Cairns encountered operational bottlenecks and elected to build solutions internally rather than accept compromise.

His entrepreneurial journey began in banking before a pivotal opportunity shifted his trajectory. “I got an opportunity to join a pathologist,” he recalls. “I took a bond on my house, bought into the business and off we went.”

That early risk paid off quickly. “I started out working on the financial side of the business, and within eight months we turned the business around,” Cairns says. Although the practice was later acquired, the experience revealed a structural gap in professional services support.

“I then saw a need within the business because of the number of big businesses that were involved in the supply chain,” he explains. “The doctors were big, but they were too small to have all of the finance and admin in house.”

What followed was the foundation of Third Age Group’s service-led philosophy. “I saw the market for a retainer basis, paid by the doctors, for the ongoing management of non-core services,” says Cairns. “Eventually, the bigger businesses in the supply chain exited and I was left with the service provision which had grown tremendously.”

Expansion followed organically. “We added short-term insurances for doctors, we added policy admin services, we added property development and rental services which allow for strong cashflow and diversification,” he says. “Initially, we struggled with builders, so we started a building company.”

That pattern repeated. “From there, we started a lettings business and a maintenance business,” Cairns continues. “We then started a range of other business that would support an aspect of one of our divisions that was previously either outsourced or unavailable.”

Each business began as wholly owned before maturing into an independent operation. The result is a group that understands its value chain end to end.

Today, the group consists of Broker Support Group, IF Capital, Emerald Accounting Services, Refer Investment, Prism Generational Wealth, Rhythm Wealth, Rhythm Finance, Stepp, Attooh! Stride Financial Advisors, and Yield Agri Investments.

TESTED BY FAILURE

Growth has, of course, not been linear. Like many South African businesses, Third Age Group has faced moments where survival was not guaranteed. In fact, the past three decades have been extraordinarily uncertain for many businesses across a range of industry sectors.

“10 years ago, we had a big insurance company invested in our business,” Cairns remembers. “They cut our fees and our book, and we went from our biggest profit to our biggest loss in just three months.”

The impact was immediate and far-reaching. “The domino effect saw our whole group take a massive hit,” he says. “We had the choice to sit and cry or get back into it and rise to the occasion.”

The decision to rebuild fundamentally reshaped the business. “We re-engineered the business to such an extent that the success we have had shows that, in hindsight, it was the best thing that could have happened to us,” Cairns reflects.

That resilience echoes research from Stellenbosch Business School, which identifies adaptability, owner resilience, and strategic reinvention as key determinants of small and medium enterprise survival in South Africa.

“Our growth in the last four years has been phenomenal,” Cairns adds. “We were at 186 staff, then a year later at 246, and then a year later 327, and now over 500.”

FARMING FOCUS

One of the group’s most ambitious expansions has been into agriculture, an industry often seen as high-risk but essential to South Africa’s long-term economic stability.

“We are excited about farming, and we are currently pushing hard to get those businesses into sustainable positions,” says Cairns.

Starting from scratch, the scale has grown rapidly. “We started with nothing and we now sit with 1250 cattle and 3500 sheep, and that is something which will grow over the next few years,” he explains.

Innovation sits at the heart of the strategy. “We are doing things differently, and we have been active in investigating how to carry more sheep while using less land because of the cost of land in South Africa,” Cairns says.

The group has diversified within agriculture. “We are also involved in poultry, and we produce 325,000 chickens every eight weeks,” he notes. “We have a stake in an abattoir which slaughters 90,000 chickens per day.”

This approach reflects a broader push to build scalable, commercially viable agricultural models that attract investment while supporting food security.

LONG VIEW

Cairns’ outlook is shaped by patience rather than quick returns, a philosophy he believes is often overlooked.

“We completed a major transaction with a coop in the Agri space that was doing R300 million in insurance premiums, and we took over the management of that,” he says. “For 17 years, we had a very small portion of that R300 million, but we stuck at it and we never ran away despite the small portion.”

When the opportunity finally came, Third Age Group was ready, fully understanding what was required to make the most of the portfolio. “Someone said to me, ‘you are lucky’, but I believe in the seed, time, harvest principle,” Cairns says.

His experience has reinforced this reality. “No matter how big your business is, you always just months away from bankruptcy,” he notes. “You always have to be alert, and you always have to respond to challenges.”

Growth, he believes, comes from innovation through discomfort. “Nobody grows while things are going well,” Cairns says. “You grow when you are challenged. The bigger the challenge, the bigger the reward.”

This positive mindset, alongside deep diversification and scale, is what differentiates Third Age Group.

“It all feeds into our vertical integration,” Cairns explains. “New companies that we invest in, use our group’s insurance, investments, lawyers, etc.”

That systemic approach strengthens margins while creating defensible advantage. “We drive revenue growth while feeding into the wider ecosystem that we have built,” he says.

Supplier relationships are treated with the same long-term mindset. “We believe in longstanding, strategic relationships,” Cairns says. “We involve our suppliers in our strategy, and we enjoy testing things with them.”

Failure is not feared but rather welcomed, if the result is inventive thinking. “We absolutely encourage and reward stretched thinking,” he adds. “We don’t want the norm.”

PEOPLE FIRST

As the group looks ahead, people remain the greatest opportunity but also a primary constraint.

“We are under huge strain finding the right people,” Cairns says. “We are going on a big expansion drive across Cape Town, Gauteng, and Durban to ensure we attract top quality people.”

Growth beyond South Africa is also measured but intentional. “We are headquartered in Bloemfontein, but we work nationally, and we have expanded into Namibia and Lesotho,” he notes. “Botswana will be next in a small way.”

Ultimately, purpose underpins strategy. “When you start to understand that you must chase what you are passionate about and not chase money, the success starts to come,” Cairns says.

That philosophy continues to shape Third Age Group’s evolution as it builds not just businesses, but a legacy designed to endure.