Manager Research

We recently completed a full review of PSG’s business and investment capability, including coverage of their income funds for the first time. Following the review, we were informed of several changes to their teams which have a direct impact on our evaluation of their funds.

Income Funds:

Ian Scott has resigned from PSG and will be relocating back to Gauteng. Ian joined PSG in 2013 as the Head of Fixed Interest.  He is the lead portfolio manager of the Income and Diversified Income funds, as well as being a co-manager on the PSG Stable fund.  Ian is an experienced income investor credited with establishing the fixed interest capability at PSG and his loss to the team is material.

Ian's resignation comes on the back of the recent retirement of Heinrich Diëtzsch, an income investor with 30 years’ experience, who managed the PSG Money Market fund.

Ian's portfolio management responsibilities will be re-allocated as follows (effective 1 July):

• PSG Income fund: Tyron Green (Head of Credit) is currently the co-manager of the fund with Ian, and will take over as the primary portfolio manager supported by Greg Hopkins, the CIO of the business


• PSG Diversified Income: Tyron Green will be joined by Lyle Sankar (who recently started managing the PSG Money Market fund) and Greg Hopkins.

While we rate Tyron as a credit analyst, both he and Lyle are still relatively inexperienced and have very little portfolio management experience. Greg will provide experience in terms of the decision-making structure, but our view is that the income analysis and implementation will fall to Tyron and Lyle.

Given the loss of Ian (in addition to the retirement of Heinrich), we have allocated a Tier 3 rating to both the PSG Income and PSG Diversified income funds.  The team is short of experience and lacks breadth at this stage, and will need time to settle into their roles and new portfolio management responsibilities.

Multi-asset Funds:

PSG have also announced that Paul Bosman, the portfolio manager of the PSG Balanced and Stable funds, will leave the business in April 2019 to pursue other interests. Paul is an experienced investor who has demonstrated significant skill in asset allocation and risk management. He has been the lead co-portfolio manager on PSG’s multi-asset funds for the last 6 years, and in our view his resignation will be a material loss to the team.

In anticipation of Paul's departure, the following portfolio management changes have been made:

• Dirk Jooste replaces Ian Scott as co-manager on the Stable fund.  Dirk joined PSG in 2017 and has been working with Paul since he joined. Dirk is relatively experienced having spent time at both Fairtree and Investec but doesn’t have any direct experience in managing asset allocation funds. 


• Kevin Cousins (Head of Research) joins as co-manager on the Balanced fund.  Kevin is a very experienced investor and we rate him highly as an equity analyst.  While he will add to the asset allocation process, the doesn’t have extensive experience in managing asset allocation funds.   

Paul will only be leaving the business in April 2019, however the time horizon for investing in either fund is longer and we don’t believe that the co-managers have sufficient relevant experience to provide confidence of asset allocation skill and to ensure that the process will be implemented consistently beyond that. We have therefore decided to downgrade both the Stable and Balanced funds to Tier 3. We will continue to reassess the funds if there are any developments.