There are a lot of whites who get clever blacks to front – Shivambu

The entire South African asset management space needs to be transformed to reflect South Africa’s demographics according to EFF Deputy President Floyd Shivambu.

The EFF deputy president was speaking at the launch of the #BEEconomics survey launch which aims to produce authoritative data that will measure the pace of transformation in the country.

Shivambu was sharing his ideas on how the entire asset management space should be transformed and said asset management wasn’t rocket science like people perceived it to be.

He said there was a lot of fronting in the asset management space.

“There are a lot [of] whites who get clever blacks to front but they were behind it,” he said, referring to black people not playing a role in the asset management space.

Black people need to play a role in the asset management according to the EFF deputy.  He said it was strange that “those assets being managed would predominantly be the assets of black people.”

Shivambu continued: “To disapprove the question of skill, you do not have to go very far. The Public Investments Corporation [PIC] is a 10% state-owned asset management company that plays in the private equity space with more than R2 trillion.

“It is black-controlled, and performs above the SWIX Index, yet there is no black-owned asset management company that manages assets of half a trillion. Why is that? That is the question we should be asking.”

The PIC performed better than some of the largest managers and was run by black people, an indication that black people had the skills.

“SOEs [state-owned enterprises] should be managed by black-owned asset management companies but that will not happen” according to Shivambu due to the “useless” mechanisms used for transformation.

In Shivambu’s eyes, there is no transformation in economic sectors. He suggested the law play a repressive role by sanctioning racial segregation and discrimination as it was done in Nazi Germany and Rhodesia.

According to 27four Investment managers, participants were interviewed since 2009 to gain their perspective on the past, present, and future of asset management for the survey.