INDUSTRY NEWS
Appointments
Kobie-Marié Hamman
Ali Khalpey
Sanlam Private Investments (SPI) has appointed Kobie-Marié Hamman as manager of its Johannesburg branch office. In her role, Hamman will lead an investment team which will service high net-worth individuals. Prior to joining SPI she worked at Aurum Fund Management, Astute FSE and Absa Investment Management Services. Ali Khalpey has been appointed as head of equities for South Africa at Renaissance
Nomkhita Nqweni Capital. He retains his post as head of sales for Africa but will oversee the growth of the firm’s equities platform. Khalpey joined Renaissance in January last year and previously worked at Investec Bank. Absa Wealth has appointed Nomkhita Nqweni as global market manager to Africa with the responsibility of steering strategies to take advantage of business and growth opportunities
Otshepeng Sokhela in the region for Absa Wealth and Barclays Wealth units. Nqweni continues in her position as managing executive for Absa Wealth. Otshepeng Sokhela has been appointed investment analyst for Novare in the funds of hedge funds team. Sokhela holds a BSc degree from the University of Witwatersrand and began her career at Alexander Forbes Financial Services as an actuarial analyst.
Sanlam cautious but looking for growth Sanlam is actively pursuing expansion plans, the financial services group announced alongside the reporting of four-month results; but tempered the news saying it remains only cautiously optimistic about the financial services environment in 2011. CEO Johan van Zyl said the company plans to explore opportunities both in India and Africa. “As previously indicated, our preferred
utilisation of excess capital is an investment in value-adding growth opportunities. We are well positioned to take advantage of growth opportunities and we are currently pursuing a number of strategic ventures.” Sanlam also cautioned that ongoing market volatility, as well as the strong comparative performance in the latter part of 2010, could have a negative impact on the level of growth
to be achieved in the group’s key performance indicators for the remainder of the year. There was good news from the first four months of the year though, with total new business volumes up 11 per cent and overall net fund inflows increasing by 27 per cent to R8.6 billion compared with the same period last year.
Fund system is corrupt In an address to government and market professionals, Andrew Canter, chief investment officer of fixed income fund manager Futuregrowth, labelled the current system of fixed income pricing and placement as close to being “corrupt”.
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Canter said the current system allows for a “big buddy” mentality where the small group of players which operate in the industry need to be kept on side, for fear of falling foul of them and getting poor prices. Canter said back channels of communications and reliance on
INVESTSA
the telephone results in a “bad market”. Canter, together with a committee of investment professionals lobbying for change, is calling for a central order book to be implemented urgently.