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Sygnia To Target Retail Investors

19 Aug, 2015

Phakamisa Ndzamela – Business Day

Founding shareholders of Sygnia plan to sell 10% of their holdings in the company as part of plans to list on the JSE main board on October 14.

Founding shareholders of Sygnia plan to sell 10% of their holdings in the company as part of plans to list on the JSE main board on October 14.

This will reduce the founders’ shareholding to 62%-65%.

The plan was to attract more retail than institutional investors, founder and CEO Magda Wierzycka said on Wednesday. Sygnia is majority owned by Ms Wierzycka and her husband, Simon Peile, the head of investments.

A listing is seen as a key tool to access capital for organic growth and acquisition.

Sygnia is largely known for its asset management capability, but also has securities and software subsidiaries.

The plan is to raise R300m from the listing but it has not yet disclosed at what price the company will list. The final investor roadshows are expected to start on September 14.

Listing details released this week showed Sygnia would raise about 90% of the capital through the issue of new shares. About 10% of it would be collected through the sale of shares by founding shareholders.

At present, an entity known as Zakota Trust, whose beneficiaries are Ms Wierzycka and Mr Peile and their sons, owns 48.6% of the asset manager.

Sygnia Investment Holdings, which is jointly owned by Ms Wierzycka and Mr Peile, holds 40% of the company.

About 7.8% of the money manager is owned by Mobula Trust, whose sole beneficiary is Willem van der Merwe, the CEO of Sygnia Securities.

On listing, the plan was for black staff to own about 10% in the listed company and a black institution would own another 10%, Ms Wierzycka said. Black staff currently owned about 20% of the asset management division, she said.

Sygnia has assets under management and administration of about R137bn.

In the six months ended March, Sygnia reported profit after tax of R29.3m, compared with R38.5m in the full year to September 2014.

Its revenue in the period was R109.8m, versus R165.8m for the full year.

In terms of earnings, Sygnia compares with asset manager Anchor, which listed on the JSE in September last year.

In the six months ended June, Anchor posted profit after tax of R29.6m and revenue of R80m. Anchor showed assets under management of R15bn when it posted interim results last week.

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