Sygnia, the asset manager founded by Magda Wierzycka 14 years ago, says its recently instituted joint CEO structure, which has delivered mixed results elsewhere, will succeed. The company said in early April that David Hufton, a former Alexander Forbes executive who joined as deputy CEO in 2016, will share the top job with the founder.
Sygnia, the asset manager founded by Magda Wierzycka 14 years ago, says its recently instituted joint CEO structure, which has delivered mixed results elsewhere, will succeed. The company said in early April that David Hufton, a former Alexander Forbes executive who joined as deputy CEO in 2016, will share the top job with the founder. Hufton said far from creating confusion and competing seats of power, the new structure will harness their complementary skills and enable the asset manager to "divide and conquer". Sygnia is not the first company to adopt the dual headed model or speak up the value of having joint heads who complement each other. Before the separation that saw Hendrik du Toit separately list Investec's asset management arm in March as Ninety One, the bank was run jointly by Du Toit and Fani Till. Sasol and Standard Bank have also had dual CEO structures with varying degrees of success. In the UK, asset manager Standard Life Aberdeen dropped its joint CEO structure in 2019, a move analysts regarded as overdue. Its competitor, Janus Henderson, scrapped its dual CEO structure in 2018. In those cases, the dual leadership followed mergers and was greeted with scepticism by analysts and investors.
"This joint CEO working model fits very well with the way we've been running the business for some time already. Magda and I are different but have a complementary skill set," Hufton said. When Sygnia announced Hufton's appointment, it said operational responsibilities had been clearly assigned, with Wierzycka focusing on its fledging international arm based in the UK and Hufton concentrating on the SA business. "Magda is superb on the sales and the marketing front she's full of innovative ideas. She has been and continues to be focused on setting up and driving our UK business. I, on the other hand, am very much hands on and focused on the SA operations," Hufton said. Wierzycka said in the company's results to end September 2019 that more of its clients in SA sought to move portions of their wealth offshore amid a weak domestic economy. As of September, the company had R238.4bn in assets under management and administration.
Its share price is down 25% compared to a 38% drop by financial services companies. The coronavirus spread, which has seen the JSE lose 12% since SA's lockdown started on March 27, has led to hardship for clients across the board, resulting in some panic selling by its retail investors, said Hufton. He expects Sygnia's retail investors to be cashing in their investments as the threat to jobs intensifies. "Although we haven't seen a lot of that yet, retail investors are reassessing their risk exposure, so we do think from a wealth management perspective it's important for them to be taking advice so that their advisers can help them navigate through this crisis, rather than making detrimental short term changes to their strategies: Hufton said. Asked whether his appointment was part of the company's succession planning, Hufton was non committal, saying: "It wasn't done explicitly with succession in mind but obviously supports succession planning."
Publication: Business Day (Late Final)
Date: 28 April 2020
Page:10