South African fund manager takes top international award for the third year running

Kokkie Kooyman

For the third consecutive year, Sanlam Investment Management (SIM) Global’s, Kokkie Kooyman, has been named fund manager of the year (category: financials). Adding to this he also received the Best Specialist Fund award for the Sanlam Global Financial Fun

Speaking after the announcement of the award, Kooyman, global fund manager at SIM Global, said that he was delighted and humbled by this recognition. “We are thrilled to have been acknowledged by Investment Week for a third year, for this top international honour, especially taking into consideration the extremely difficult market conditions of the past 5 years. Our fund’s performance has been delivered by a talented and dedicated team and therefore recognition for this commitment is a significant achievement for the whole team.”

The Investment Week fund manager of the year awards aim to highlight funds which have consistently outperformed over a three year period and those which the judges believe are likely to continue this performance in the future.

Kooyman was the only South African finalist in the category at the Investment Week awards. He has managed the Global Financial Fund for 12 years and during that period it has achieved a compound annual return of 14 percent in US dollar terms for investors, compared to the benchmark of 1 percent.

“SIM Global’s success is based on a solid understanding of the fundamentals of value investing. Our philosophy has been honed and adapted by 25 years of experience, a system that consistently identifies the best investment opportunities and results in continuous outperformance over the long term,” explains Kooyman.

“We do our own research, our portfolios are concentrated and we are unconstrained – a factor which becomes especially important when specific markets or sectors are expensive. In addition, we deliberately focus on finding undervalued companies. These tend to beundiscovered companies (generally small market cap) or turnaround situations with good growth prospects,forecasting high return on capital and a low price to net asset value ratio.” concludes Kooyman.