The Principal Officers’ Accolade for Professional Excellence awarded Cadiz Asset Management with the Socially Responsible Investor of the Year award for the second year in a row at the annual Imbasa Yegolide Awards. This award recognises the unique strategic partnership between Cadiz Asset Management and GreaterCapital to deliver sound investments with a measurable social impact.
“South Africa needs a catalyst that will encourage investment in infrastructure and other development and socially-oriented capital projects to promote growth and stability,” says Heather Jackson, Head of SRI at Cadiz Asset Management. “We are enormously encouraged by this award. The savings industry is beginning to recognise the vital role of sustainable impact investing in offering the capital and ingenuity necessary to solve some of our pressing social and environmental challenges in South Africa. It is the companies and organisations with the capabilities to turn these challenges into business opportunities that are more likely to be the winners of tomorrow.”
“We are delighted to be recognised again,” says Dean Hand, CEO of GreaterCapital. “When we started our joint venture with Cadiz, we faced resistance to the idea that socially responsible investments could yield real returns for investors, as well as change lives on the ground in our country. This award shows that the tide is turning as investors realise the enormous potential of socially responsible investing.”
GreaterCapital (part of the GreaterGood group) and Cadiz Asset Management have broken new ground by working together to create a socially responsible investment product that could unlock the tremendous social and economic benefits of Socially Responsible Investing in South Africa. The cooperation between the two is unique in the Southern African market, integrating the considerable asset management expertise of Cadiz with the project initiation, analysis and impact reporting capability of a social enterprise like GreaterCapital.
This award comes at a time when South Africa grapples with how best to encourage our considerable savings industry to play a more meaningful role in promoting responsible and sustainable investing. Organised saving has been slow off the mark to support investments that help to build a more sustainable future for South Africa. But the current process of reforming Regulation 28, which governs Pension Funds, as well as the stated objective of Minister Patel to introduce a form of prescribed assets via a Development Bond, has placed responsible investing at the forefront.
GreaterCapital and Cadiz took part in a critical debate hosted by the South African Network for Impact Investing (http://www.saiin.co.za/) after the POA conference yesterday entitled: Prescribed Assets – carrot or stick? Are South African pension funds doing enough to promote sustainable growth?
Get the latest issue of FAnews