The US-Israel war on Iran has taken a nearly R350bn bite out of the Public Investment Corporation’s (PIC) assets under management, the entity’s CEO, Patrick Dlamini, told parliament.
He was briefing parliament’s standing committee on finance in a virtual meeting on Wednesday morning.
The Middle East conflict’s economic impact has mostly found expression in fuel price pressures due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Dlamini said the asset manager, which manages funds on behalf of the Government Employee Pension Fund (GEPF), was doing well in terms of growing the value of assets under management, but the entity, like many others, was blindsided by the war.
“Growth over the years, and that is at the end of March 2026, is still unaudited. We are sitting at almost R3.7-trillion. Unfortunately, we were quite impacted by the geopolitics and the Iran-US-Israeli war in the Middle East,” he said.
Dlamini said the PIC was getting closer to passing a threshold of R4-trillion in assets under management before the conflict started at end-February. Attempts by US President Donald Trump’s administration to secure a permanent ceasefire or resumption of the flow of vessels through the strait have failed.
“We were almost touching on R3.9-trillion in assets under management. Four weeks of the war led to us losing almost R350bn. It’s the nature of our space and of the dynamics of the markets we’re in. But we are hopeful that, as the situation begins to recover and improve, we’ll be able to see growth in our assets under management accordingly,” Dlamini said.
According to Trustnet, up to 95% of funds worldwide have lost money since the war started. Among global assets only Brent crude oil, the Chicago Board Options Exchange’s volatility index, commodities, and cash realised positive returns.
Global corporate bonds, global treasuries, gold and global stocks all veered into negative territory, according to Trustnet.
The decline in assets is a setback for the PIC, which has set a target of R4.2-trillion in assets under management in the next two years, according to its corporate plan.
South Africa’s equity market took a hammering after the outbreak of the war, with the all share index, the broadest measure of the stock market performance, shedding more than R2-trillion in value in the first few weeks of the conflict.
Resources stocks and banking stocks, the sectors to which the PIC, the largest investor on the JSE, has a big exposure, took a particular hammering.
The hard-running platinum shares were the biggest victims of the turmoil on the JSE, with the resources sector declining by 15% during March.
The PIC has commanding stakes in Sibanye, Northam, Valterra and Impala Platinum.
Charles de Kock, a portfolio manager at Coronation, said asset managers cannot predict with certainty short-term events, such as how long the conflict and the disruption to energy prices will last.
“History has shown, however, that when crises pass, markets tend to recover swiftly, leaving those with high cash holdings looking on,” De Kock said in a note reviewing first-quarter performance.
“Our long-term approach is focused on finding winning businesses and staying invested through difficult times. This strategy has worked over many decades, and we see no reason to change.”
Herman van Papendorp, head of asset allocation at Momentum Investments, said South African asset classes recouped some of their large March declines in April, showing widespread positive returns.
“A poor showing from both gold and platinum shares kept the SA resources sector under pressure in April. This negated some of the positive returns shown by the financial and industrial sectors in the month, causing the aggregate SA equity market to underperform local bonds, as well as its global equity counterparts in DM [developed markets] and EM [emerging markets],” Van Papendorp said.
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