Manager Research

Stanlib announced several changes to the investment teams in their fixed income, multi-asset and absolute return franchises that will be implemented over the course of 2019.

Fixed Income Franchise:

The franchise has been co-managed by Henk Viljoen and Victor Mphaphuli since 2016. Stanlib announced that Henk will be stepping back from all his responsibilities in the fixed income team and will be joining the multi-asset and equity franchises as a senior portfolio manager with a focus on enhancing tactical asset allocation. Victor will manage the franchise in his sole capacity going forward, but he has been in the team for a substantial period of time (since 2001) and he is supported by a relatively broad fixed income team.

We have been observing Henk paring back his involvement in the fixed income franchise for some time, so his departure from the team is expected. Our evaluation of the funds therefore reflects our assessment of the team’s core competencies outside of Henk.

Multi-asset Franchise:

The franchise has been undergoing significant change over the last few years, with the most recent being Robin Eager’s departure in March 2019. Robin headed up the franchise since 2014 but has been on sabbatical since August last year. He remains a resource to the current team until the end of June 2019.

In addition, Warren Buhai, currently a senior portfolio manager and a senior resource in the multi-asset team for the last 10 years, will be moving over to the absolute return team, which is headed up by Marius Oberholzer.

The multi-asset franchise will remain under the leadership of Herman van Velze, who is also the franchise head of the equity franchise. The equity and multi-asset franchises have become closer aligned since the equity capability in the multi-asset funds fell back to the equities team in 2016, after a period of being managed by the multi-asset team under Robin.

We have commented on the ongoing changes at Stanlib before. We remain concerned with the lack of structural stability across the business, and in the multi-asset and equity teams specifically, with the latest changes being further testament to our concerns. While we expect greater strategic direction in the business under the leadership of Mark Lovett (who joined as Head of Investments last year) and former Libfin Chief Executive Giles Heeger (who joined as Liberty Exco member responsible for Stanlib in 2017), we need to see evidence of the business settling down before we can develop any level of comfort in their capabilities across these franchises.

We have retained our ratings on the funds: