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Inside Institutional: Edition 2

| Inside Institutional, Podcasts

A message from Tino’s desk

Since the last edition of Inside Institutional, we are proud to have received the Sustainable Asset Manager Award presented by 27Four, in partnership with Batseta.  This award reflects the huge strides we have made in becoming a leader in sustainable investing. Our exclusive sustainability services partnership with Robeco Asset Management, one of the world’s leading practitioners in sustainable investing, is delivering meaningful results. This year’s 27Four ESG survey focused on fixed income mandates. Mokgatla Madisha, Head of Fixed Income within the Sanlam Investments Active Manager and Teboho Makhabane, Head of ESG and Impact at Sanlam Investments share insights into the award in a podcast.

Manka Sebastian, Portfolio Manager in the Direct Property team, continues on the theme of sustainability and highlights the importance of focusing on the S in ESG in her article, “ESG in Africa: Lessons from nations who put the S above the E and the G”. This is particularly important to SA, given the social challenges the country faces, which are evident in the high levels of inequality.  Manka highlights examples of countries that have been intentional about investing in the S and the dividends they were able to reap from doing so.

In recent years, investors have started to seek more than a financial return from their investments. This has underpinned the surge in impact investing, which involves making investments with the intention of generating positive, measurable social and environmental impact along with a financial return. Lindiwe Mtshali, ESG and Impact Analyst at Sanlam Investments, provides insight into how the Sanlam Investments Alternatives business, our private markets business, is intentional about impact when making investments.

Staying with the theme of impact investing, Vukile Themba-Mketo, Portfolio Manager in our Private Markets Credit team, spoke at the Batseta Winter Conference recently, on the importance of empowering small and medium enterprises (SMEs). In her article, “SME growth through ‘patient capital’ and blended finance solutions is key to SA’s economic recovery”, she discusses the role that Sanlam Investments plays in growing this sector, contributing to economic growth and creating opportunities for sustainable job creation.

In 2022, two significant changes were made to Regulation 28 of the Pension Funds Act. One was to increase the overall offshore limit from 30% to 45% (which included doing away with the ring-fenced allocation for Africa of 10%). The second was to widen the definition of infrastructure and raise the infrastructure investment limit to 45%. In a podcast, Kingsley Williams, Chief Investment Officer at Satrix, talks to me about infrastructure investing, the opportunities it presents, and the Satrix offering in the global infrastructure space.

Lastly, the transition to more greener forms of energy has been quite topical lately as the world grapples with the effects of climate change. A few years ago, Sanlam Investments in its efforts to help tackle the effects of climate change formed a strategic partnership with FMO, the Dutch development bank, leading to the establishment of Climate Fund Managers (CFM). To date CFM has launched two funds which have had successful fund raises; one focuses on Renewable Energy (Climate Investor 1) and the other focuses on Water and Oceans (Climate Investor 2). On the 20th of June 2023, CFM in conjunction with the President of South Africa, the Dutch Prime Minister, the Danish Prime Minister and other strategic partners including the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA), Sanlam and the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) announced the launch of Climate Investor 3 – A Green Hydrogen Initiative. More information on this initiative is shared in the article titled “Unveiling the ‘SA-H2 Fund’: South Africa’s Dedicated Green Hydrogen Fund”.

In August, CFM and Sanlam Investments will host an event to share more information on this initiative with clients, so please look out for an invitation to the event. We hope to see you there.

As always, on behalf of Sanlam Investments, I would like to thank you for your continued support.

Tinotenda Mtemeri
Head: Institutional Distribution

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