Investment Solutions is ramping up its growth strategy to expand market share in the retail (individual clients) sector where the company is teaming up with Independent Financial Advisors (IFAs) to offer a suite of financial products.
The strategy complements the company’s existing focus of providing investment and savings products through institutional partners, such as asset managers and portfolio managers, says Gareth Johnson, the new head of Head of Retail at Investment Solutions.
Investment Solutions, which has assets worth R300 billion under stewardship, uses a multi-manager approach in its investment strategy and currently employs 150 staff.
“Our multi-manager approach ensures that Independent Financial Advisors (IFA’s) and our clients have access to a dedicated Investment team at Investment Solutions. The team of 26 experts continuously assess and combine asset managers in risk profiled portfolios to meet the demands of clients.
In addition to this Investment Solutions monitors the performance of asset managers, holding them accountable to ensure they deliver according to their mandates.” Investment Solutions is also active in the responsible investing arena and consequently works with asset managers to ensure the long term interests of their clients are taken into account.
He has been tasked with the overall responsibility for the Retail Division and the overall client experience. Johnson says he will continue to focus on a strategy, started more than 18 months ago, to build Investment Solutions’ footprint into the retail (individual client) market, including growing the sales and client servicing teams, building the retail investment team and also expanding the retail operational capability.
Investment Solutions offers products ranging from retirement and living annuities to preservation pension and provident funds along with typical local and global discretionary unit trust offerings, Johnson says. “We believe our approach of targeting clients, who are mostly individuals seeking financial advice from IFAs, is the best approach. IFA’s have the expertise, time and understanding of the unique needs of their clients to ensure that they appropriately invest assets in the most suitable product and investment portfolio”.
“IFAs can cut through the clutter and explain in plain language the various investment options, asset classes and demystify terms such as equities, bonds and cash which seem to confuse even the most educated,” he says.
Johnson says Investment Solutions believes in exposure to both active and passive investment portfolios because it understands that individual clients’ needs differ from one person to the next. Some investors may opt for active investment options yet others are content with passive investments, he says. He adds that there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to passive or active investing, it all depends on the individual needs of the client.
“Our active portfolios are extremely competitively priced and our passive portfolios are probably the cheapest in the market, costed at 45 basis points all-in, including administration fees,” Johnson says.
He believes there is need for more education on financial literacy in South Africa, including professional people who do not have investment or savings plans. “There is still a lot of education that needs to be done to remove the mystery around investing and saving and to build trust in our industry,” Johnson says.
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