Sanlam EB - Sanlam SENS news
Sanlam Employee Benefits enters into an administration joint venture with Coris Capital
Sanlam Employee Benefits (Sanlam) today announced that it has entered into an administration joint venture with Coris Capital (Coris). Coris is a financial services company that specialises in administrative services to its client base, including retirement fund administration, disability management, risk benefit administration and annuities as well as pensioner payroll administration.
In terms of the joint venture Sanlam will merge its retirement fund administration business with the current operations at Coris. The combined venture will operate under the existing Coris brand and the new executive management team will be made up of current management from both organisations. Sanlam will appoint the chairman of the new venture, and Coris the CEO. As part of the transaction Coris Multi-Manager will be sold to Sanlam Multi-Manager Portfolios.
Following the transaction, Sanlam will hold 50% of the equity in Coris and management of the business will have a 31% interest. The BEE component will be 25%. The business will be adequately capitalised to ensure its growth and development.
Commenting on the transaction Nick Christodoulou, Chief Executive of the Retirement Fund Administration business at Sanlam, said: Sanlam chose to partner with Coris Capital as we believe that Coris can add significant value to the way we interact with our clients. Through Coris, we will be able to provide our clients specialised functionalities such as daily pricing and asset/liability matching per fund via multiple client interfaces, including franchisees, call centres, the Web and kiosks. In addition, Coris has a highly skilled, experienced and dedicated staff and operates on a South African based IT platform with extensive support, enabling management to focus on business processes.
"Sanlam remains committed to maintain consistently high standards of administration and we believe that Coris can make a significant contribution to Sanlam in the areas of risk management, quality control and superior client service. This joint venture will offer our combined clients an enhanced value proposition in the South African market. The transaction is projected to result in a cost saving to Sanlam of R50 million per annum."
Johan Potgieter, CEO of Coris Capital, commented favourably on the deal: "In Sanlam we have found a partner that shares our commitment to innovation and integrity. We believe this joint venture will bear fruit for both parties and for our clients - and we look forward to the benefit that Sanlam can provide in terms of its experience and the scale of its existing employee benefits business. We are confident that the new combined management team is very committed to a well-planned and seamless migration of Sanlams clients to the Coris platform to minimise the risks of deteriorating client services levels and administration errors."
The effective date for the transaction is 1 October 2006.
