Sanlam scoops several awards

Andrew Kingston_Andrew Kingston, Portfolio Manager, as Sanlam Asset Management

Vanessa van Vuuren_Portfolio Manager at Sanlam Investments

Sanlam walked away with several awards at the 20th annual Raging Bull Awards Ceremony at The Bay Hotel in Cape Town on 27 January 2016. This prestigious event honours the star managers in the South African unit trust industry, measured on their long-term performance. The Sanlam Investment Management (SIM) Industrial Fund, co-managed by Andrew Kingston and Marlo Scholtz, was once again named the best SA equity industrial fund. This is the second time in three years that it’s claiming this position; two years ago it also received the coveted award for Top Performance by a Domestic Collective Investment Scheme – across all categories.

Kingston points out, ‘The fund has demonstrated SIM’s strong equity research capability, performing best in its category over the past one, three, five and 10 years.’ The fund posted an annualised return of over 26% p.a. over the three years to 31 December 2015, despite the challenges faced by value style managers, such as SIM, during the momentum streak of the past few years. The fund is also number one across all categories over 10 years with an annualised return of more than 20%. 

In the Best SA Equity Smaller Companies Fund category, portfolio manager Vanessa van Vuuren collected the award for the SIM Small Cap Fund. The SIM Small Cap team analyses more than 100 small and mid cap stocks and, if you include the greater SIM equity research team, SIM has 100% of the small and mid cap universe covered. Van Vuuren credits the success of the fund to the extent of the team’s coverage and the strong research culture embedded within the equity team. 

All SIM’s funds are driven by one house view process, and the awards reaped by the SIM Industrial and Small Cap Funds demonstrate SIM’s strong local equity capability, in particular.

In the Best (FSB-Approved) Offshore Fixed Interest Bond Fund category, the Sanlam Global Bond Fund, managed by Blackrock and Cameron Hume, walked away with the laurels. The fund aims to provide income, while still allowing for the possibility of long-term growth from capital appreciation. 

In the Best (SA Domiciled) Global Multi-Asset High Equity Fund category, the Sanlam Global Balanced Fund of Funds, managed by Sanlam International Investments, a division of SIM, stole the crown from its competitors. In the Best (SA Domiciled) Global Multi-Asset Low Equity Fund category, the Sanlam Global Cautious Fund of Funds walked away with the award. The fund is diversified across assets classes and has a high exposure to less volatile asset classes, such as cash and fixed interest.

Awards for asset-specific categories of funds are based mainly on straight performance calculated by ProfileData over a three-year period. The Sanlam Global Balanced Fund of Funds and Sanlam Global Cautious Fund of Funds received their awards on the basis of their excellent risk-adjusted returns, though, showing the skill of the managers in protecting the investor against capital losses.