Manager Research

Sanlam Investment Management (SIM) announced that Patrice Rassou has resigned from the business to take up the role of Chief Investment Officer at Ashburton Investments. Patrice is currently the Head of Equities at SIM and the portfolio manager on the SIM Top Choice Equity and SIM General Equity funds. He has a 6 month notice period with SIM and will only be joining Ashburton in April 2020.

Patrice has been Head of Equities at SIM since 2011 and a portfolio manager since 2006, so we view his departure as a material loss to the institutional memory and aggregate experience of the equity team. That being said, SIM does have a well-resourced and experienced equities team which enables adequate coverage of their SA-only universe. Andrew Kingston, currently Head of Equity Research, and portfolio manager, Cromwell Mashengete, will take over from Patrice as co-heads, with Marlo Scholtz replacing Andrew as head of their research capacity.

SIM is expected to announce the new portfolio managers on the Top Choice and General Equity funds in the coming weeks. Given the breadth in the team and the fact that Patrice is working off his 6 month notice period, we have retained the ratings on the funds until we have more clarity on succession.

We are also spending time with Ashburton in early November to get more clarity on their business and team changes.