outh Africa has a relatively small equities market with a handful of dominant shares, spread across a few sectors, which are available to invest in. This presents a significant risk for investors: a highly concentrated portfolio. When compared to global markets, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) is relatively small, comprising less than 1% of the total global investing universe. It is also highly concentrated, with the top 10 shares on the FTSE/JSE All Share Index (ALSI) making up between 50% and 60% of the index. In contrast, the top 10 shares in one of the world’s major indices, the S&P 500, make up just over 20% of the index. Most of the ALSI’s concentration comes from one share: technology giant Naspers, which makes up 20% of the index. Naspers’ dominance in recent years has increased concentration risk for investors, making portfolios overly sensitive to the factors that drive its value. In general, most investors are happy to contend with the exposure, as long as they are still generating positive returns. But what happens when the proverbial goose stops laying the golden eggs; when the dominant share(s) in your portfolio begins to perform poorly? How you can mitigate your concentration risk As famously stated by American economist Harry Markowitz, who received a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences: “Diversification is the only free lunch in finance.” The best way to reduce your concentration risk, without losing out on the potential to earn good returns, is to make sure that you are invested in a combination of assets that have little correlation to one another – essentially, having a diversified portfolio where you generate returns from a wider spread of assets, industries and markets with an acceptable level of risk. To construct a diversified portfolio, one has to consider correlation and volatility. Correlation measures the strength of the relationship between the returns of two assets. A positive correlation indicates a strong positive relationship, i.e. the two assets tend to have higher and lower returns at the same time – this is indicative of an undiversified portfolio. A negative correlation implies the opposite, i.e. returns of the two assets move in opposite directions at any given time. A correlation of zero implies that no relationship (positive or negative) exists between the returns of the two assets. By adding assets with zero, or negative correlation, a portfolio becomes more diversified. You should also look at the overall volatility of your investment to gauge how well your portfolio is diversified. Intuitively, a portfolio consisting of correlated assets should show a larger deviation in its overall returns (i.e. high volatility), while a portfolio that has uncorrelated or negatively correlated assets should show smaller deviations in its overall returns (i.e. low volatility). In essence, if you have a well-diversified portfolio, then your investment should generate returns at lower levels of volatility over the long term. Diversify your portfolio If all this sounds very complicated, you could consider investing in a balanced fund. These are available both locally and internationally and offer a good solution to those investors who want to create a diversified portfolio without the hassle. Your chosen investment manager will carefully select a basket of uncorrelated assets from different markets, companies and industries to ensure that you generate good returns with minimal concentration risk. Local balanced funds offer South African investors some offshore diversification, but remember that Regulation 28 of the Pension Funds Act limits their foreign asset allocation to a maximum of 30% of the fund, with an additional 10% for investments in Africa outside of South Africa. This may not be enough offshore exposure for your needs – in which case you can also invest directly with offshore fund managers of your choice or through an offshore platform, such as the one Allan Gray offers. Every South African resident can use up to R11 million offshore for all foreign expenditure including travel, foreign exchange and for investing purposes. The first R1 million, called the single discretionary allowance, can be used without having to obtain permission from the South African Revenue Services (SARS) and the Reserve Bank. If you want to spend above this allowance, up to R10 million, you would need to get a tax clearance certificate from SARS. To further diversify, many investors choose to invest in more than one of the same type of fund from different managers. If you go this route, it is important to check that the underlying investments are different; otherwise, the combined weighting of the duplicate shares may increase your portfolio’s concentration. Building a diversified portfolio can be complicated and requires a solid understanding of markets and companies. But the good news is that you don’t have to go at it alone. An independent financial adviser (IFA) can help you assess the concentration risk in your portfolio and advise accordingly. It can be tempting to ignore concentration risk when the going is good, and returns are attractive. However, an undiversified portfolio can quickly become a problem if your most concentrated shares begin to perform poorly. Source: Vuyo Nogantshi , Allan Gray
0 Comments
In the past three weeks, I have attended investment briefings by four well-known asset management companies in South Africa. The four fund managers are PSG, Allan Gray, Coronation, and Prudential. Allan Gray ranked first and PSG ranked second in the Raging Bulls Award. Prudential Prudential is the number one Larger Manager according to Morningstar, it also celebrates 25 years of asset management in South Africa this year. Coronation is a JSE listed fund manager that celebrated asset management in South Africa for 25 years last year. I will tell the reader my summary first: 1. These four fund managers have excellent long-term track record. Many of their funds are suitable for different types of investors, ranging from short-term high-yield, secure capital funds, to equity funds and multi-asset allocation funds for long-term growth. 2. No one has escaped the effect of political corruption (namely State Capture) in South Africa in the past five years, which has led to the economic downturn and the flat stock market. Fund managers have also been affected by the ongoing US-China trade war on the global economy and investment market since last year. The annualized return on equity funds over the past five years has been 5%. 3. Looking ahead, all fund managers are optimistic about the return on the South African stock market in the next three to four years, Japan and emerging markets such as China. At this stage, they also like the high yield on South African bonds, giving investors a yield of 9% to 10%. They are negative on European and American bonds, especially the negative interest rate on 10-year German bonds. Investors investing in German bonds are destined to receive less than the principal after 10 years. 4. Allan Gray and Coronation are South Africa's largest fund companies, with large amounts of assets under management and relatively conservative investment style. Prudential and PSG manage assets on a smaller scale, and they are able to be more flexible. Prudential always likes some exposure to listed property, and PSG is now favoring small and mid caps in South Africa and certain Japanese companies. ***** I have been dealing with asset management companies in South Africa for nearly 20 years. I have seen the growth and changes of the asset management industry, and experienced the ups and downs of the investment market: The Dot Com bubble in 2000, the global financial crisis in 2008, the European debt crisis, the emerging market crisis in 2014, and the US-China trade war from 2018 to the present. In South Africa we have seen the shocking firing of Minister of Finance Nene in 2015. During this period, South Africa's asset management industry flourished and there are now more than one hundred fund managers. It is very challenging in choosing the funds to invest in, as the market changes, portfolio managers change, and many funds appear and disappear in these two decades. However, patient investors investing in good funds of reputable fund managers will have been rewarded over the long term. Let compound interest be your good friend and work for you. 1. PSG Asset Management The PSG Asset Management's investment philosophy is 3M – Moat, Management and Margin of Safety. Moat is a company's competitive advantage, that acts as high barrier to entry, such as technology, systems, talent, and markets. Management refers to the track record of the company's management and how they allocate the company's funds. Margin of safety refers to whether the stock price is lower than the assessed intrinsic value of the company, this provides investors with downside protection against the risk of over-estimated intrinsic value. PSG has a 20-year history, was previously run by successful manager Jan Mouton and then handed over to Chief Investment Officer Greg Hopkins, who has 18 years of experience. Shaun le Roux has been with the company 18 years, managing PSG Equity Fund and PSG Flexible Fund. However, it has lost two senior portfolio managers in the past three years, the performance of new managers Justin Floor and Dirk Jooste remains to be seen. PSG's philosophy is to find investment opportunities in areas that everyone hates, and to avoid everyone's favourite stocks. This is value investing. Therefore, PSG currently does not invest in technology companies or defensive stocks, but favours South African small and mid caps. Below are the latest PSG investment update videos: How we think about and manage risk Is SA Inc even investible? Opportunities in local markets Opportunities in global markets 2. Allan Gray Allan Gray has a 45-year history in South Africa and its sister company Orbis has a 29-year history of managing global assets in Bermuda. Both companies share the same founder, Allan Gray, and have the same value investment philosophy. Like PSG, it is also a contrarian investor, looking for investment opportunities in areas that people don't like. However, because of the large scale of assets under management, Allen Gray must invest in large blue chip companies. Allan Gray's strengths are equity research and asset allocation. Its weakness is its long-term dislike for real estate, which currently works in its favour, but it missed the long-term listed property boom before 2018. Allan Gray's portfolio managers are pretty stable, with an average of more than a decade of experience at Allan Gray, giving investors invested in their funds certainty and peace of mind. Allan Gray pointed out that the total assets under management of the South African fund industry in the past three years were virtually flat, indicating that the South African stock market has been dull in the past five years and that the general public under economic and tax strains has no money to invest more. It is no surprise that, over the past three years, The fund category receiving the most new money flows is money market and income funds. Because of the lacklustre returns from the South African stock market in the past five years, investors have turned to income funds for high yields. Indeed, the chart below confirms the equity return has been below the cash return over the last five years. But the stock markets do work in cycles. If history repeats itself, the return of the SA stock market in the next three to four years will far exceed the bank deposit interest rate. The chart above shows that during the past 17 years, between 2002-03 and 2012-13, the five-year JSE total return was lower than the deposit rate. It is also the case from the second half of last year. However, after the stock market rebounded, the return for the next three to four years was better than the bank deposit. According to Allan Gray's data analysis, cash deposits only has a 13% chance of outperforming the stock market in the next four years. In other words, the stock market has an 87% chance of outperforming cash deposits in the next four years. The odds are now in investors' favour to hold and enter the stock market, not to exit. Allan Gray's foreign investment is handled by its sister company Orbis. Orbis has long-standing admirable performance, but it has fallen 20% in the last one and a half years, making it a bottom performer last year, and slightly behind its sector average in the past five years. This is due to its contrarian investment style, sometimes allowing it to greatly exceed the market, and sometimes falling far behind. I remember that in 2012-13, Allan Gray also had a period of under-performance, but it laid the foundation for its subsequent performance in 2014-2016. In the past year, Orbis has more stocks losing money than stocks that make money. What has happened? According to its analysis, the top five detractors of performance are as follows: Orbis spent some time explaining the largest detractor XPO. XPO is a US logistics and transportation company that aims to help companies enter the e-commerce sector and compete with Amazon. It is committed to the vertical integration within the logistics industry, offering small and medium-sized enterprises one-stop service. It acquired a truck fleet company Conway four years ago. In the second half of last year, the profit announcement disappointed, then short-sellers attacked the company with damaging reports. Its stock price subsequently fell 30%. Orbis met with the management and thought that the founder Bradley Jacobs and his management team were still very good, and the market was wrong in punishing the stock, so it increased its investment in XPO. Abbvie is a US pharmaceutical company, and Orbis is convinced of the future of the US healthcare industry, so it has added another pharmaceutical company, Celgene. After reviewing the investment case for Netease, it has increased its holding, now it is the largest position in the fund, with a weighting of 9.1%. PG&E is an electricity and gas company in California, USA, it sold out at a loss. It also sold out Symantec, an internet security company, at a loss. For the Chinese market, Orbis is optimistic about the future of tech companies, mainly holding shares in NetEase, Tencent and Autohome. Orbis has a long-term track record, I suggest investors buy on current dips. 3. Coronation Asset Management Coronation is 26 years old in South Africa and is South Africa's largest listed fund manager. I was invited to participate in the annual Face to Face event in Cape Town, as due diligence, and listened to its economist and 8 portfolio manager briefings throughout the day, from Top 20 Fund, Balanced Plus Fund, Strategic Income Fund. Capital Plus, Balanced Defensive, Property, Global and Emerging Markets, The day ended with a Q&A session with Chief Investment Officer Karl Leinberger. Coronation employs 300 people, one-third of whom are investment analysts and fund managers, a strong investment management team in South Africa. It follows a valuation driven investment process and invests in undervalued companies or assets. The difference between Allan Gray and Coronation is that Coronation is more likely to invest in riskier industries in the stock market. In recent years, it has invested in mining stocks, which initially caused the its equity funds to fall, then helped investors make money when share prices recovered and rose. Coronation also likes real estate, and for a long time there has always been an exposure to listed property in South Africa and abroad. However, Coronation has also stepped on many of the so-called landmine stocks in recent years, such as Steinhoff and MTN, so the returns from its equity exposed funds have been market average for the past five years. The Coronation investment management team is stable and reputable. They have been incorporating ESG (environmental, social, governance, environmental, social and corporate governance) principles in evaluating investment opportunities for many years. On the whole, their standouts are income-based funds, where risk management is robust, and opportunities are captured for clients to enhance yield. the other area is global Emerging Markets. Many analysts visit the CEOs of listed companies around the world, they really work hard to find investment opportunities for clients. Other funds are expected to have similar returns relative to other larger managers in the long term. 4. Prudential Prudential Prudential Investment Management celebrates 25 years in South Africa. Similar to Coronation, the valuation investment method is also used, but because it belongs to Prudential, a global financial services group headquartered in the UK, it tends to have a more macro, top-down approach, to assess the relative value of each country and asset class, thereby overweight the undervalued assets and underweight the overvalued assets. It does not take big bets, but rather a large number of small bets. It uses a team-based investment management model. Its investment performance is more market neutral, unlike Coronation, which sometimes experiences large ups and downs due to its conviction calls. Although the investment management team is not large, it is also very stable. Chief investment officer David Knee has more than 20 years of investment experience, mainly fixed income assets, worked in the UK and moved to South Africa in 2008. Head of Equity Johny Lambridis is an actuary and has many years of investment management experience. Prudential's macro data analysis has three points that caught my attention: First, China and India accounted for about 50% of global GDP before 1820. The G7 industrial countries rose rapidly during the industrial revolution of the 19th century, and reached the peak of 49% of global GDP in 1940. The rise of China and India over the past 40 years is just a return to its former status. It now accounts for 30%, which is equivalent to 32% of G7 countries. 2. The global population continues to grow, but the growth rate is slowing. The global population is expected to reach 11 billion in 2100. The population continues to be aging, which has a huge impact on social welfare, government borrowing, caring for the elderly, and political landscape. 3. The rise of China is closely related to the liberalisation of world trade. The left axis of the chart below shows the world trade as a percentage of GDP, and the right axis is the growth rate of China's economy. World trade has increased from 25% in the 1960s to nearly 60% in 2008, but since then it has plateaued. The ongoing US-China trade war is threatening world trade, which in turn will slow down China's economic growth. Prudential's leading funds are Equity Fund, Balanced Fund, Inflation Plus Fund, and Enhanced SA Property Tracker Fund. These funds have outperformed the average fund in their respective sectors over the long term. However, Inflation Plus Fund has fallen behind in the past three years.
Allan Gray has provided an excellent summary of the 2019 budget speech. We would like to share with you here: What were the key changes?Allan Gray, a leading investment platform in South Africa, is leading the way in technological innovation by introducing digital transaction authorisation. For years, clients have been able to give instructions online. Instructions include additional contributions and fund switches. For clients that prefer to submit instructions via their financial advisors, from November 2018, we are able to generate instructions on Allan Gray Online and send to you via email to approve such transactions digitally. This means saving time, saving paper, saving money. There are four key benefits when you work with your Advisor this way digitally: Speak to your Financial Advisor if you would like to make use of such digital service.
Around this time of the year, we would like to remind you to consider topping up your retirement annuity fund, or contribute to a tax-free savings account. It's perfectly legal. Save money for yourself, instead of giving to the taxman. Such tax savings can amount to tens of thousands of Rands. Retirement Annuity According to the current legislation, you may contribute up to 27.5% of your taxable income to a retirement annuity fund and enjoy tax deductions. As 28 February is the end of the tax year, you must calculate and pay the additional amount to your retirement annuity prior to this date, in order to qualify for tax deductions and tax refunds. Below is an example of topping up your retirement annuity: Mr Mabasa has a monthly salary of R50,000. In December he received a bonus of R100,000. Every month he contributes R3,000 to a personal retirement annuity fund. His annual income is then R50,000*12 + R100,000 = R700,000. The maximum tax-deductible contribution to retirement annuity is R700,000 * 27.5% = R192,500. Over the year he has contributed the following to a retirement annuity fund: R3,000 * 12 = R36,000 The additional amount he may top up in his retirement annuity (RA) is R192,500 - R36,000 = R156,500 He can look to get a tax refund of R192,500 * 39% = R75,075. Attached is a document from Allan Gray summarising the differences between an RA and a tax-free investment. minimise-your-taxable-income_maximise-your-tax-savings---ra_tfi.pdf Speak to your Financial Advisor if you would like to exercise one of the two options, or email invest@daberistic.com. What is the fund’s objective? The Fund aims to create long-term wealth for investors within the constraints governing retirement funds. It aims to outperform the average return of similar funds without assuming any more risk. The Fund’s benchmark is the market value-weighted average return of funds in the South African – Multi Asset – High Equity category (excluding Allan Gray funds)
Fund description and summary of investment policy? The Fund invests in a mix of shares, bonds, property, commodities and cash. The Fund can invest a maximum of 30% offshore, with an additional 10% allowed for investments in Africa outside of South Africa. The Fund typically invests the bulk of its foreign allowance in a mix of funds managed by Orbis Investment Management Limited, our offshore investment partner. The maximum net equity exposure of the Fund is 75% and we may use exchange-traded derivative contracts on stock market indices to reduce net equity exposure from time to time. The Fund is managed to comply with the investment limits governing retirement funds. Returns are likely to be less volatile than those of an equity-only fund Suitable for those investors who:
For each percentage of two-year performance above or below the benchmark Allan Gray may add or deduct 0.1%, subject to the following limits:
Source: Allan Gray On Saturday 26 May 2018 Folpic Investors Forum, which is one of our clients held an Investment workshop. Folpic in partnership with us as their Broker and Allan Gray as their investment provider shared insight to shareholders on understanding Investments and how their current investments portfolio works. There was also an informative presentation from Njabulo Sithebe who is a Economist and he shared information The gaps and history in local market regarding investments as well as the effect of Global market on clients investments.
It was truelly a successful information sharing event where shareholders got to ask questions and engage with Kevin Yeh from Dabersitic who as a Wealth Manager with a focus on Unit Trusts in his presentation. Below is a picture of Kevin with the Folpic Management team . |
AuthorKevin Yeh Archives
January 2025
Categories
All
|