Last week, the Presidential Working Group for Women (PWGW) and Old Mutual launched the Women’s Activism Balanced Fund, a women’s empowerment investment fund that follows last year’s launch of a domestic workers’ retirement plan.
An injection of R70-million in seed capital will be made by Old Mutual into the fund of which R20-million has been invested by domestic workers already invested in the Domestic Workers’ Plan.
Last year, the launch of the plan by PWGW chairperson Gloria Serobe highlighted that women have different savings needs to men, especially in their role as caregivers.
As many women take time off to have children, they require retirement funds that allow for a break in contributions. Women also tend to under-save for retirement because they have taken time out of their careers to raise children. In addition, women live seven years longer than men on average.
The new fund forms part of a package called Financial Solutions for Women, launched by the PWGW, and will use its investment clout to promote the interests of women in society.
The Women’s Activism Balanced Fund seeks to provide investors with inflation-beating returns over the long term, while at the same time leveraging shareholder activism to drive the interests of South African women in general.
With Gail Daniel from Investec Asset Management chosen as the first fund manager, it will also look at investment projects that directly benefit women, for example water and sanitation projects in rural areas.
In order to promote investment in areas that will benefit South African women, the PWGW has established a separate entity, Atumia, that will provide a legal vehicle through which the PWGW can engage service providers.
This will further provide an independent governance and activism framework to achieve the objectives of the PWGW.
The women’s activism committee will serve as sub-committee within Atumia to effect changes in companies in which the Women’s Activism Balanced Fund invests.
According to Brenda Madumise, the PWGW spokesperson and chairperson of the women’s activism committee, the organisation will use the collective assets in the fund to buy shares in companies.
The activism committee will then flex its shareholder voting muscle to influence corporate conduct in South Africa around corporate governance, and environmental and social responsibility programmes.
The fund will be looking to attract a large number of women investors from individuals to groups of employed women such as domestic workers to large retirement funds investing on behalf of their female members.