INN8 Invest named top performer at Citywire SA DFM Awards, wins two other accolades

INN8 Invest, one of South Africa’s largest discretionary fund managers (DFM), won the Best Overall Investment Performance Award at the inaugural Citywire South Africa DFM Awards.

The financial-services group also collected the best performance accolade for Global Equity and the top prize for performance in the SA Multi-Asset Medium Equity category at a ceremony on Thursday. 

“Receiving these awards are a real honour for the INN8 Invest team, as we believe it validates our vision and promise to our wealth manager partners of a more transparent, engaged and outcome-focused DFM experience," said INN8 Invest Executive De Wet van der Spuy.

The performance awards were based on a quantitative assessment using Citywire’s methodology for measuring risk-adjusted performance over the past three years.

Citywire aims to improve transparency in the DFM industry with the awards, South African senior relationship manager Brett Powell said before the ceremony. “We designed them keeping end-clients in mind to help DFMs improve their service.”

INN8 Invest values transparency in the industry, which for years has been grappling with how to compare the returns of hundreds of unique strategies against each other. That’s even as DFMs have seen exponential growth, with assets climbing more than fivefold since 2015.

“We have built a powerful value proposition that puts financial advisers at the very centre of it,” said Leigh Kohler, the head of DFM at INN8 Invest. “We are not only able to deliver exceptional performance for clients but also add value to our advisers’ practices and help them to enhance the value they add to their clients. We aim to improve continually.”