Today, STANLIB’s parent company, Liberty Holdings, announced its financial results for the year ended December 2020. Commenting on STANLIB’s performance for the same period, CEO Derrick Msibi said: “Reflecting on our financial performance in 2020, we are pleased with the resilience we’ve shown, evidencing the robust position of the business. While STANLIB was not immune to the logistical, financial, and systematic upheaval of Covid-19, we successfully executed on the core goals we set to support our return to growth journey.”

“After a volatile year and challenging economic backdrop, STANLIB remains financially resilient and well positioned to deliver on its strategic long-term goals. The most important of these; to continue focusing on improving our client centricity and delivering excellent investment performance across our business.”

Financial performance

For the year ended 31 December 2020, STANLIB maintained headline earnings and grew assets, with AUM at R614 billion (31 December 2019: R568 billion). The business benefited from a relatively high representation of fixed income assets and strong inflows into our offshore offering.

Headline earnings were stable at R453 million (31 December 2019: R453 million).

NCCF increased significantly during the period, particularly third-party flows, which is a measure of the resilience of our business. Total net external third-party client cash inflows increased by R35 billion, with R3 billion positive NCCF from retail collective investments and healthy growth in institutional and IFA flows.

Despite a difficult operating environment, costs were in line with budget, with operating expenses increasing by 2% to R1 281 million.

Investment performance

We continued to elevate our investment performance, evidencing significant progress towards our goal of delivering more consistent long-term performance. Most of our retail funds now rank in quartile 1 or 2 over one, three and five-year periods. Key investment highlights include:

• A steady shift from quartile one and two results, to more consistent quartile one delivery across our offering
• STANLIB received five nominations at the 2021 Raging Bull Awards
• In 2020, we launched the Khanyisa Impact Investment Fund and closed the STANLIB Infrastructure Fund II, both gathering encouraging flows from several institutional investors.

These portfolios will help spark economic and social benefits through investment in infrastructure, green energy, inclusive financial services, and agriculture.

Outlook

Over the medium-term, we will continue building on the critical foundations we have established, remaining focused on fostering a future fit asset management business that responds to the needs of a new investment era.