2020 – what a year Locally and internationally, it has been quite a year. I review some of the most important developments. Covid - 19 Covid-19 naturally stands out as the development of the year. It dealt South Africa the most serious economic blow since the 1920s. Two million people lost their jobs. Many small (and some big) business had to close doors. In general terms, it worsened South Africa’s triple curse of poverty, inequality and unemployment. On the other hand, Covi

Many things have happened in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector in 2020, but one can summarise it all in just two words: accelerated adoption. Adoption of digital tools increased massively, and we’ve all been quite surprised by the maturity of some of the technological capabilities. Collaboration tools now make it easy to hold board meetings with one board member in Nairobi, another in London, a few in Cape Town, and a number in Johannesburg... and it a

Entries are now open for the 2020 edition of the Sanlam Awards for Excellence in Financial Journalism. Entries close on 28 February 2021 and must be submitted via the website for all work published or broadcast between 1 January and 31 December 2020. This year the competition sees a re-introduction of two category awards in broadcasting covering two fields: Audio (traditional and online radio and podcasts) and Television/Video. The broadcast categories are open to African fin

As Charles Koch once said: “The future is unknown and unknowable.” Looking forward into 2021, amidst all the uncertainty, we have to ask ourselves a few philosophical questions: What do we know, we know; what do we know that we don’t know; and what don’t we know we don’t know? This is according to Head of Old Mutual Equities, Siboniso Nxumalo, who says that considering the year that was and towards the year ahead, we know that market crises offer future investment opportuniti

The Sanlam Group has announced that it has reached an agreement with African Rainbow Capital Financial Services (ARC FS) for Sanlam to acquire a 25% non-controlling minority shareholding in ARC FS SubCo, a wholly owned subsidiary of ARC FS. The transaction is subject to certain suspensive conditions being met. On conclusion of the transaction, Sanlam will become a 25% minority shareholder of ARC FS SubCo and ARC FS will retain 75% majority shareholding. Today’s announcement f

Argument for a purposive approach to the interpretation of section 37C of the Pension Funds Act (“the Act”) Introduction Prior to the new democratic dispensation, the most prevalent theory of statutory interpretation in South Africa was the literal theory or the orthodox text-based approach.[1] In terms of this theory, the interpreter focused primarily on the literal meaning of the provision.[2] If the meaning of the text was clear, that was the meaning to be used, irrespecti

One lesson from 2020 The COVID-19 pandemic and associate measures resulted in the harshest contraction in the prices of financial assets in the shortest time to date, and the fastest recovery in the prices of financial assets to date. What have we learnt from our experience in 2020? The construction of the default investment strategies used by retirement funds makes sense The default lifestage investment strategies invest the savings of younger retirement fund members in grow

Everyone needs to save for retirement. Even if you plan to keep on working past normal retirement age, there will come a day when you are mentally or physically unable to. When that day comes, you need retirement savings to replace your lost income. A retirement annuity is one investment vehicle which will help you prepare you for that day. You can think of a retirement annuity like a special savings pot for retirement. You add to the pot while working, by making monthly or a