We had an incredible day at the Allan Gray Fund Provider workshop in the V&A Waterfront. Although the weather did not afford me the opportunity to don my South African flag speedo, it was incredibly insightful and surprisingly positive. The agenda was jam-packed with 6 specialist fund managers providing feedback on their funds’ performance as well as investment expectations over the next 1-to-5 years based on their funds’ positioning. The positivity was quite tangible in the room and very refreshing when compared to similar presentations that we attended over the last couple of years. The positivity stretched across both the political and economic front - both locally and internationally.

Peter Kent from Investec Asset Management (soon to be AG Fund Provider Summary as 91) shared how far we have come from a political leadership point of view over the last couple of years. We now have some incredibly capable leaders in places of influence who want to affect change for all South Africans. Although we would’ve liked the political change to happen overnight with the election of President Ramaphosa - and as you know it did not happen overnight - change has certainly come about in most, if not all, areas of the public sector.

Andrew Lapping from Allan Gray was very positive regarding the opportunities available to investors not only in the international stock market - which has certainly been the flavor of the month - but also with regards to the local bond and equity market. With the crystal ball being unavailable at present, they have however started selling some of their cash holdings in order to buy growth assets like shares listed on the JSE (where you can pick up a couple of bargains) and inflation-linked bonds (which offers very good returns over-and-above inflation).
All of the managers however did preface their presentations with the following, “although we are cautiously optimistic, we have no idea what awaits us. The market will go and up it will go down, but stay invested.”