The Public Investment Corporation (PIC), Africa’s largest state-run asset manager, plans to channel more business to black-owned and controlled money managers. It also wants more than a third of its senior managers to be women by the 2026/27 financial year.
The money manager, with R2.6-trillion in assets under management, outlined in its 2024-27 corporate plan its objective to maintain a minimum of 30% women at senior management level in the current financial year, as per the Paterson grading scales.
The PIC aims to have women occupying 30%-35% of senior positions by 2025/26, ramping up to more than 35% by the 2026/27 financial year.
A recent article published in Business Day highlighted gender disparity in investment decision-making, with men outnumbering women three to one. Data showed a clear bias towards men in employment trends in the asset management industry, particularly in investment-related positions.
One of the impediments flagged by the industry in bringing more women into the system was the 80/20 male-female split of chartered financial analyst (CFA) holders. The CFA designation is considered the apex for professional development in investment management, and is highly valued by employers for roles in the finance industry, including portfolio management, analysis, private wealth and consulting.
The PIC wants more than 85% of critical vacancies in 2026 filled in line with employment equity guidelines. On December 31 2023, its employees numbered 393. More than 25% of its employees are skilled investment professionals.
“The key success factor for any organisation is putting its people first. The PIC human capital strategy is guided by three overarching goals that would create and deliver value for the organisation, our people and the achievement of the clients’ mandates: culture and leadership; high performance; and talent,” said the PIC. “The human capital strategy is a plan of action that will enable the revitalisation of the organisation, manage talent and support employees to reach their full potential.”
BEE allocation
An asset manager that has made great strides in transforming the make-up of its workforce is Coronation, which manages more than R600bn on behalf of its clients. The company said in November that 42%, or R254bn, of the assets under its care was managed by black investment professionals, making it one of the industry’s most transformed companies. About 67% of Coronation’s executive committee consists of historically disadvantaged people.
The PIC said that by 2026 it planned to have more than 60% of the total managed assets in pubic markets allocated to domestic firms to be managed by transformed managers with BEE level 1 to level 3 and with at least 51% black ownership and at least 30% black management. Its target is to have at least 90% of brokerage spend channelled to brokers on level 1-3 BEE rating by this financial year.
CEO Abel Sithole has said previously that there is a bigger opportunity to transform the existing white players, whether they are asset managers or companies in general.
Smaller asset managers, where the black players tend to be found, have struggled to compete with the big players.
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