Sanlam Investment Management (SIM), the long-only asset manager in the Sanlam Group, announced on Monday that it had appointed Gerhard Cruywagen as chief investment officer (CIO),. Cruywagen will be located in SIM’s Tygervalley offices from 1 August 2008.
Cruywagen is well known to the asset management industry, having previously worked at Prudential Portfolio Managers for eight years, spending six years as CIO. At Prudential, Cruywagen also headed up the fixed interest and real return portfolios.
He holds a B.Sc [cum laude] in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics and a B.Sc Honours [cum laude] in Applied Mathematics from Stellenbosch University. He was awarded a Rhodes scholarship to Lincoln College, Oxford, where he obtained a D. Phil degree in Mathematics in 1992. Cruywagen obtained his CFA designation in 1999.
Commenting on the appointment of Cruywagen, Armien Tyer, managing director of SIM, said, “The appointment of Gerhard as our CIO will strengthen our boutique model and further integrate our already robust investment process.”
Tyer said that over the past few years SIM has worked hard to ensure that it had the right people onboard and a stable team in place. “We have refined our processes and implemented leading edge systems. This has enabled us to create specialist boutique investment teams, each of which employs individuals with significant depth and breadth of experience. Each boutique is headed up by a senior fund manager, who is encouraged to take passionate ownership of his or her investment area.”
He said that with SIM’s boutique structure and processes in place, the company had redefined its requirements for a CIO. “We were looking for a person with the expertise to bring an independent, fresh view to SIM which would allow us to further embed and drive our current investment philosophy and process. As we have no intention of making fundamental changes to the way we do things, we wanted a CIO with a proven track record as a value manager to help us lift our game and integrate our views across the boutiques. Gerhard emerged as the ideal candidate with all the right qualities,” added Tyer.
Johan van der Merwe, CEO of Sanlam Investments, which clusters together the investment businesses within the Sanlam Group, welcomed the new appointment: “We have a dynamic entrepreneurial culture across the businesses that challenges and empowers people to be successful. We believe Gerhard’s active leadership style will fit well with our values of innovation, passion and transparency.”
Tyer concluded, “We look forward to having Gerhard working with us to achieve our core purpose of becoming South Africa’s leading investment management business.”
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