WEALTH WATCH
STEPHEN CRANSTON: Here’s hoping Stanlib can take a spot as a premier fund manager
I hope Stanlib will once again take its place as one of the premier fund managers in SA. It has huge advantages over most of its peers because of its position in the Standard Bank Group and as fund manager of the Liberty product range. It is all very well to criticise, as I often have, its poor equity and balanced fund performance. However, consider that it is in much more robust shape than Ashburton, FirstRand’s fund manager. It would have been cheaper for FirstRand CEO Alan Pullinger to light a bonfire of R200 notes in Merchant Place than support this folly. I am a big admirer of Nic Andrew and his best-of-breed unit trusts at Nedbank, but it is a low overhead model with no in-house stockpicking. Absa Asset Management had a few moments of glory under Alan Miller and Errol Shear. Now there is strong speculation that it is for sale. I can see Liberty CEO David Munro understands the value of keeping an in-house manager intact. After all, there is an inexorable move from life-based en...
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