Leading multi-manager plots growth path

Investment Solutions? managing director, Derrick Msibi

SA’s largest multi-manager, Investment Solutions has declared its future plans of widening its global footprint with the unveiling of its new corporate identity.

Investment Solutions’ managing director, Derrick Msibi believes the new positioning sends a clear message to stakeholders about the organisation’s track record as leaders in investment performance and about its future strategic direction.

“Since inception 10 years ago, our managed assets portfolio has grown to over R140 billion. The big news however, is really about how we’ve reinvented the organisation to become leaders in investment performance as well as leaders in a host of other areas including risk management, innovative service delivery and people management.”

One of the big moves the company has made has been to diversify its service offering from multi-managing investments for large retirement funds to offering all major asset classes including alternative as well as socially-responsible investments. “We’ve restructured to ensure market acceptance and recognition in both local and global markets,” he said.

“Now it’s time to demystify multi-management. We’ve been ahead of the game in the retirement fund industry over the past decade and going forward, it’s important that the market understands the benefits of investing with multi-managers. Experience of the recent recession attests to the performance of multi-managed portfolios, and increasing numbers of people are looking for better ways to reduce risk and protect their assets.”

In delivering better solutions, Investment Solutions has effected a number of organisational changes including creating a client-centred culture, investment in technologically advanced reporting systems and enlightened employee practices.

Leadership shifts with the company have also precipitated change. A high calibre management team comprising internal and external appointees has filled the shoes of the departing founding members and the new energy has brought about transformation on all levels. An increased focus on employee management best practices and effective empowerment policies has also galvanized the human resources element, Msibi added.

“We needed to communicate all these internal changes externally. We needed to convey our ‘new’ 10-year old organisation in a contemporary, compelling and distinctive way that reflected our reinvention and provided additional momentum and visibility for our strategic direction,” Mbisi said. To do this, the company developed a new visual identity and brand positioning and the finished product – a new logo comprising five interlocking circles with black, white and silver the predominant colours – was unveiled at a recent launch event.

The launch is being supported by an above-and below-the line advertising and public relations campaign, supplemented by direct marketing strategies developed by the company’s newly established marketing department. The print campaign highlights Investment Solutions’ key differentials, emphasizing that it gives clients a far more complex, precise and structured service than that of its competitors. The visuals and wording of the print campaign communicate the powerful message that Investment Solutions manages and co-ordinates a range of elements including the selection, monitoring and blending of its managers to deliver optimum results for clients.

“Our story has been a journey of change, growth and evolution,” Msibi said. “As represented by the new logo, we believe the five pillars of action that drive our business both internally and externally (investment performance, people, clients, systems and transformation) – will provide both the foundation and the springboard for the next leg of that journey.”