DFM Perspectives: Building Portfolios for the Future

Brendan began his career in financial services in the beginning of 2008, initially as a financial adviser. After working in the advice industry for five years, Brendan moved into asset management in 2013 where he has remained. Brendan is the Head of Research at PortfolioMetrix Asset Management SA, a position he has held since 2015. Brendan holds numerous professional designations and is a CFA Charterholder, CAIA Charterholder, FDP and CFP Professional.

Tavonga Chivizhe co-established the retail investment consulting and investment management firm Boutique Investment Partners in 2013. In addition to being a founding director, Tavonga is currently the Chief Investment Officer at Boutique Investment Partners. On completing his actuarial studies at the University of Cape Town in 2005, Tavonga Chivizhe joined the Metropolitan Collective Investments CEO, Robert Walton, with the primary goal being to establish a retail multi-manager offering for the Metropolitan Group. This initiative, which began in early 2006, started with a seed capital of just under R5 million, and by the time of the merger between Metropolitan and Momentum in 2010, the Metropolitan Multi-Manager division was gaining meaningful traction with assets under management of just over R6 billion. Tavonga passed the Actuarial Fellowship exam with the Institute of Actuaries in the United Kingdom in 2011.

Florbela (Flof) Yates began her career in November 1993 as a consultant with Alexander Forbes in the health care division. She spent six years there before transferring to Investment Solutions as a senior marketing executive. There, she focused on new business in the institutional space. Florbela was instrumental in building relationships with consultants outside of Alexander Forbes and growing assets in that external market. After 13 years with the group, she joined RMB International as their Head of Institutional Business in SA. Her responsibilities included participating in the quarterly asset allocation and manager review meetings in London, reporting back to local clients whose offshore assets they managed and growing the offshore assets. She then joined STANLIB Multi-Manager where she was involved in growing institutional assets, product development and institutional reporting. It was at STANLIB that she branched into the retail investment space as an investment marketing specialist. Here, she was involved in distributing not only the STANLIB Multi-Manager offering but also growing the Stonehouse model and their building blocks into the partner space. It was here where her first experience into the DFM market was gained. She then spent three years with Hollard Investments in their DFM team for a period of three years. Here, she was involved in concluding partnership deals with identified independent financial advisers (IFAs) and building bespoke model portfolios for retail clients. Florbela joined Momentum Investment Consulting (MIC) in January 2017 as Head of MIC and is responsible for Momentum Retail’s advisory business. She has a BCom (Economics, Business Finance, Marketing and Tax) degree and is a certified financial planner (CFP).

Patrick Cairns is editor of Citywire South Africa, the country’s leading resource for news and insights on the asset management industry. He has extensive experience covering all aspects of fund management and the evolution of the industry.