For much of the past few decades, the retirement debate has been framed as a choice between two broad models: Defined benefit (DB) funds offered members greater certainty and pooled many retirement risks but placed considerable financial risk on the...
For more than two decades, South Africa’s retirement industry has been trying to solve the same problem: too few people retire with enough savings to maintain their standard of living. Despite countless interventions, stronger governance, improved product...
Investors spend hours analysing a fund’s track record yet rarely ask who’s holding their investment or under what licence. Take three people who put money into the same equity strategy, run by the same manager. One through a unit trust, one through an...
In a complex investment landscape, retirement fund stakeholders face a difficult balancing act. Members want strong long-term returns, protection from market uncertainty, transparent governance and cost efficiency. Regulators expect prudent oversight....
A retirement fund can appoint the right managers, make the right asset allocation decisions and generate strong investment returns. But if those decisions are implemented late, processed incorrectly or supported by fragmented systems, members may never...
For many years, investment platforms were seen primarily as administration vehicles. A place where trades were processed, reports were produced and portfolios were administered. Those responsibilities remain important, but the role of an institutional...
Social infrastructure is still too often treated as an investment category in which financial return and social purpose sit on opposite sides of the equation. The assumption is that if capital is directed towards affordable housing, schools or other assets...
Over the past few years, local investors and commentators have called for the offshore limit on retirement funds to be raised or scrapped altogether. Much of the case rests on access to better investment opportunities and sidestepping the South African...
For too long, development in South Africa’s townships and rural communities has been approached in silos. We build houses in one place, shopping centres somewhere else, schools and clinics when budgets permit, and expect transport networks to somehow connect...
Water security is not an abstract environmental theme. It is a system level risk for long-term investors that touches on inflation, growth, social stability, municipal credit metrics and the reliability of the infrastructure on which the economy depends. The...