Sygnia, one of South Africa’s fastest growing asset management firms, is planning to roll out an acquisition drive and grab market share from its competitors in 2017.
Sygnia, one of South Africa’s fastest growing asset management firms, is planning to roll out an acquisition drive and grab market share from its competitors in 2017.
Sygnia CEO Magda Wierzycka said on Wednesday that the 10-year-old company, which listed last October, would focus on strategic acquisitions and not buy assets for the sake of buying.
“2017 is a year of going after assets and also trying to take away market share from our competitors,” Wierzycka said. “They have to be clever acquisitions. We are planning to find opportunities in the umbrella fund space, robotics and stockbroking.”
Sygnia posted strong numbers in a difficult environment. It reported 18 percent growth in revenue in the financial year to September to R276.2 million compared with R234 million last year.
Adjusted headline earnings a share were 53.1 cents and it also posted adjusted diluted headline earnings a share of 52.59c. A total dividend of 53c a share was declared, while total expenses rose 23.7 percent to R198 million.
Growth
Wierzycka said the numbers mirrored continuing growth in client numbers and assets under management. These also reflected an injection in expenditure on systems and staff to build operational capacity and the challenges presented by volatile and unpredictable investment markets.
Sygnia's key focus was lowering the cost of saving and investing, delivering innovative products and a strong long-term performance across its product ranges. This had resulted in net inflows of R11.3 billion.
These included multi-management, index tracking and hedge funds over the 12 months to September. There was a further R4.9 billion in inflows related to the acquisition of the Gallet group.
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The investment administration division, however, experienced net outflows of R5.4 billion, a direct reflection of the shrinking institutional savings pool in South Africa as the pace of retrenchments and retirements exceeded new job creation.
Sygnia launched a unique new product, the Sygnia 4th Industrial Revolution Global Equity Fund, in collaboration with Kensho Technologies, a US-based big data analytics company.
Sygnia shares rose 0.3percent on the JSE yesterday to close R16.55.