This year, Alexforbes marks 90 years of service to South Africans. It's a milestone that invites reflection ‒ not just on our own journey, but on the transformation of retirement savings across the country. Over the decades, we've seen the retirement system...
The business case for sustainability is clear: companies and retirement funds cannot thrive on a planet suffering from cascading crises and unmanageable risks. Yet, despite decades of corporate commitments, businesses continue to damage the planet. The...
When it comes to investing, the experience matters just as much as the returns earned. That's why the idea of smoothing investment returns continues to resonate, especially in today's climate of elevated uncertainty and market volatility. While smoothing may...
The status of integrated reporting in retirement funds Integrated reporting is not a new concept. It was introduced by the King Report on Corporate Governance for South Africa (King IV)™ in 2016 and King IV even has a specific supplement for retirement funds...
As a wealth manager, one of the key principles to understand is that while we can't control everything, like market performance, we can control strategic decisions that impact a client's financial future. One such controllable factor is the timing of retirement. Your...
If you have not yet heard about the bucketing strategy, it has little to do with Johannesburg's recent water crisis and plenty to do with solving the longevity conundrum for living annuity clients. The bucketing strategy involves dividing a client's...
Over the past two decades, there has been a notable shift from standalone retirement funds to commercial umbrella funds. This transition has been driven by increased cost pressures, tighter regulatory requirements, increased demands on trustees, the desire...
Retirement funds, whether a pension, provident or retirement annuity before retirement and living annuities after retirement, have a general lack of appeal due to their perceived complex nature and inflexibility. However, the advantages can often far...
The two-pot system is the latest milestone in retirement reforms that have taken place over the last decade. This new system is an exciting and significant enhancement to our retirement fund system. The two-pot system will increase retirement savings over the...
In previous articles, we explored strategies to safeguard retirement funds against failure, drawing insights from corporate failures and independent non-executive (NED) remuneration practices to identify transferrable learnings for retirement funds. In this...