Evolutionary Awards 2025 – 27four: evolution in asset management

Category: Evolutions in investment

Describe your evolution:

The introduction of the 27four DEI Index Framework (DEInvest Annual Survey)

The 27four DEI Index aims to measure, benchmark, and promote DEI within the South African asset management industry. By evaluating firms against a set of well-defined criteria, the Index encourages the adoption of DEI best practices and fosters meaningful transformation across the sector.

It provides a standardised framework for asset managers to assess their DEI performance, while also serving as a tool for investors to screen asset managers on DEI criteria. With growing evidence that diverse teams deliver superior financial performance, the importance of DEI is increasingly recognised as both a social and economic imperative.

Alignment with Global Standards Designed with South Africa in mind, the Index takes into account the local environment and practices while aligning with internationally recognised frameworks, such as the 2X Challenge, to ensure its relevance and applicability both locally and globally.

Framework

The Index is structured to address five key dimensions of DEI:

• Ownership: This criterion ensures that historically marginalised groups have a meaningful economic stake in the sector, thereby promoting broader economic inclusion.
• Representation: Focused on leadership diversity, this criterion evaluates the presence of black people and women in key roles, including the board of directors, C-suite, and key investment decision-makers. It ensures that diverse perspectives are represented at the highest levels of decision-making.
• Equity: This criterion promotes equal compensation, career progression, and the retention and hiring of black people and women, fostering an environment where all employees have equal opportunities to succeed and thrive.
• Impact: This criterion encourages active stewardship by addressing racial and gender disparities through proxy voting and direct engagement with portfolio companies, including investing in companies whose business activities enhance the well-being of black people, women, and girls in the economy. This criterion also promotes diversity within portfolio management teams.
• Policies and Governance: This criterion requires firms to implement robust policies that promote equity in supply chain procurement, integrate DEI metrics into executive performance evaluations, provide clear career progression guidelines, commit to pay equity, uphold fair recruitment and retention practices, enforce stringent sexual harassment policies, and prohibit discrimination based on disability, gender, race, ethnicity, political affiliation, religion, or sexual orientation.

Describe the impact your evolution has had in response to its identified challenges and targeted outcomes.

The 27four DEI Index is designed to be a catalyst for positive change within the South African asset management industry. By offering a clear, actionable framework, it aims to inspire firms to integrate DEI principles into their core practices.

The Index is intended to be widely adopted, becoming a cornerstone in the collective effort to build a more inclusive and equitable industry that reflects the diversity of the society it serves. We invite market participants to connect with the research to explore how the Index can enhance DEI efforts, and we look forward to collective engagements on driving meaningful impact across the sector.

DEInvest is an evolution from the research we have been conducting since 2007, including BEE.conomics. This research has since led to the development of partnerships leveraging catalytic capital to accelerate social and investment returns as well as harnessing the transformative potential of diverse asset managers. This work has allowed 27four to support the growth and development of 59 black and/or women asset managers across public and private markets since 2007, including 13 women-owned firms and 39 firms being seeded by the program.

Supporting Documentation >