You know you’re growing up when every month a large chunk of your salary goes towards various types of insurance.

That’s just a part of the daily grind of life, and Discovery is doing pretty well as a result.

How else would the Discovery Group be able to drop R280 million a year  – that’s R23 million a month – on renting its new offices in Sandton, Jozi.

They’re in it for the long haul, too.

BusinessInsider reports that the company has entered into a 15-year rental contract with property group Growthpoint, which developed 1 Discovery Place at a cost of more than R3 billion.

It is rather fetching:

The building has a roof-top running track and a gymnasium that can accommodate up to 3,000 members.

…After 15 years the building will not be transferred to Discovery, and a new rental agreement has to be drawn up.

According to BusinessTech, Growthpoint will make as much as R7 billion over the next 14 years from Discovery, with rent set to increase to R400 million annually by 2022 (R33,3 million per month), and to R600 million, or R50 million per month, by 2028.

The rent includes space for Discovery’s existing units (like Discovery Health), as well as space for new units like Discovery Insure and Discovery Bank.

At R23 million a month, I would hope so.

The building can house a thousand employees per floor, with a total of 7,000 employees working from the office.

BusinessLive previously reported that a Boeing 737 can be suspended from the building’s west atrium without it touching sides.

It is considered to be the “the largest single-phase commercial office development in Africa” and is also the largest building to receive a five-star rating from the Green Building Council SA.

The architects behind the building said that they conceptualised it as a “grand central station – an interchange between the company and its clients”.

Discovery, which operates in over 19 countries, including the United States and United Kingdom, grew profits by 17% in 2018 to R8.26 billion.

It plans to launch a bank in South Africa in the middle of 2019 which will use the same methodology as its Vitality programme to improve consumer behaviour

Seeing as they’re doing so well, maybe they can revisit the idea of helping gender non-conforming and transgender people get the medical care they need, without them having to take out bank loans and accumulate debt.

Just a thought.

[sources:businessinsider&businesstech]