Shaun Harris
Neil Thomas, a youngish manager with a large food company in Durban, survived last year’s crack in the stock market fairly well. His collection of unit trust investments actually gained a few percentage points growth over the calendar year – not bad seen against the Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s (JSE) overall decline.
Now Thomas has a problem. With equity prices again picking up on the JSE – a gain of about 20% for the first quarter of the year – he doesn’t know where to shift his unit trusts to enjoy the JSE’s revival but still maintain a reasonably low-risk profile.
“Panic forced me to start actively managing my portfolio last year, and the choices were simple – the rand had crashed, equity prices were coming off quickly, all I could do was to try and preserve as much value as possible in the unit trust portfolio I have been building up,” he says.
Thomas is a good example of the non- professional unit trust investor who has been driving the industry for years. At the end of March, total assets under management breached R90-billion for the first time. But many investors and unit trust management companies had a bad time last year as share prices went into reverse.
Statistics from the Association of Unit Trusts (AUT) show the industry recovering over the first quarter of this year. They also show what could prove to be some fundamental shifts in unit trust investment patterns. The result is a fair degree of confusion over how to best invest for future growth among the buying public, financial advisers and even some asset managers.
This is what’s troubling Thomas. He began buying units through monthly debit orders in the early 1990s.
He was introduced to unit trusts by his broker, and it was a great investment, he says, until the market started to wobble two years ago. But he wanted to remain in unit trusts and although he does not have any expertise in investment, he used common sense last year and effectively reconstructed his unit trusts into a defensive portfolio.
Thomas’s experience is a microcosmic reflection of what happened to the unit trust industry in terms of inflows and outflows of money. Although total assets increased in value by 27% over the previous quarter, aided by the 18% rise in the all share index and net inflows of R1,7-billion, the distribution of money flowing through the industry is skewed towards money market and international funds.
Sales of R8,7-billion increased money market fund assets by 66% over the quarter to R20,3- billion, a significant portion of the industry’s total R90,4-billion assets, considering that money market funds are new to the market.
AUT executive director Colin Woodin says money market fund inflows were nearly three times larger than a year ago, becoming “a significant new niche in the financial markets, offering high relative income yields, and also being used as a parking bay at times of equity market volatility.”
The last point is moot. Individual investors like Thomas fled to money market funds last year because they did not know where else to go. Equity prices were falling and with interest rates three or four percentage points higher than now, the money market offered a decent return and relative safety from the stock market.
It is debatable whether money market funds are still the place to be with interest rates coming down and equity prices going up. So where do they put their money now?
Most of the money (R2,6-billion) that went into equity funds over the first quarter was channelled to international unit trusts. The earlier sharp depreciation of the rand served as a reality call for private investors, bringing home the point that a balanced portfolio needs currency and asset class and sector diversification.
The problem is that many unit trust management companies have reached the 15% ceiling of total South African assets that precludes them from making further offshore asset swaps. A number of international funds have accordingly been forced to close off their funds to new business, limiting the choices available to individual unit trust investors.
The AUT has been talking to the Reserve Bank about being more flexible towards asset swaps, but don’t expect any resolution soon – at least not until after the elections.
The Reserve Bank says part of the reason for the recent stability of the rand is its enforcement of the 15% cap. This would mean the rand is being artificially propped up, not a good practise over the longer term. But the authorities won’t want a crack in the value of the rand before the elections.
Faced with these changing investment patterns, what should individuals do now? A lot depends on a person’s risk profile, but there are a few general points that should allow investors to benefit from the JSE revival.
One is that the large general equity funds, which suffered a R1-billion outflow over the quarter, reducing their share of industry assets from 33% to 29%, are again starting to look worthwhile. These funds should at least track the all share index, expected by many fund managers to gain another 20% before the end of the year.
Certain sectors, notably commodities and consumer stocks, have suddenly become hot property. This could be a rewarding avenue of growth, but specialist funds here are essentially cyclical and carry above-average risk.
Pieter van Niekerk, MD of Old Mutual Unit Trusts, says while the conventional wisdom that unit trust investments should be medium to long term, cyclical funds are the exception. “You cannot take a long-term view on a cyclical counter. Timing is all important,” he says.
So these flavour-of-the-month funds are probably best suited to a smaller part of the total portfolio, leaving the core investment in local general equity funds and offshore funds.
If an investor cannot access a genuine offshore fund because of the limitation on asset swaps, a unit trust weighted towards local rand hedge stocks is second prize.
Thomas has thought his strategy through and is moving out of his money market fund and building up about 40% of his unit trust portfolio in the newer general equity funds. He also wants to increase his offshore exposure to about 40%.
As for the remainder, he says it will go into the highest potential growth funds he can find. He’s not too keen on commodities, but believes consumer funds should be good.
ENDS
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