I was recently approached by someone for help with her Sanlam RA's - they are the bad, old traditional life RA's with opaque fees, poor returns and hefty penalties if you make any changes before the term ends. It seems that Sanlam has found a way aro
A client of mine presented a potential dilemma to me. He has a living annuity through Liberty Life but also has the bulk of his living annuity funds on a LISP platform. He was wanting to move the Liberty one to the LISP and consolidate his investment
What if SA is where Zimbabwe was ±20-25 years ago? With the benefit of hindsight, what would the average Zimbabwean do differently? Would they have stopped investing into their pension funds and bought more foreign currency? Would they have emigrated
I must admit to feeling quite deflated post the budget speech - kind of feels like we are just getting squeezed even more and that there is little motive to working hard and attempting to save when in reality we are just being taxed more and more and
Some thoughts on the market's slide - with thanks to the Motley Fool http://www.fool.com "Global jitters" was used in the media 933 times last week to describe why the market was falling, according to Google. Thanks, that's really helpful. It's th
I remember a great radio ad a couple of years ago by one of the unit trust mancos that feautred 2 opera singers. One sang (in a very deep/low voice) “buy, buy, buy, buy” while the other one sang “sell, sell, sell, sell” in a very high voice. The poin
I was recently interviewed on radio about the new tax-free savings accounts (TFSA) that are being introduced on 1 March 2015. Any attempts to encourage savings in a country where household debt levels hover around 80% needs to be applauded and encour
Traditionally February is our busiest month because it is the end of the tax year – this means it is the month to do the 2nd Provisional tax return (and payment) and also RA top-ups. Over the years RA’s have received a bad rap – this is mostly a f
I was recently asked by the editor of Finweek what I thought of Sanlam's "new" RA. Here is my response: “On a level, Sanlam could be applauded for trying to encourage saving for retirement in SA. However, it is my belief that anyone that can offer
I had an interesting meeting with a young client recently who was at great pains to tell me that he had managed to get off the company pension fund because they were taking too much money off his salary each month and the fund was far too boring for
•Asset Allocation Strategy
•Investment Research and Selection
•Local and Offshore Investing
•Tax Efficient Planning
