It’s a decade since we said farewell to the late Dr Ivan May, a man I got to know through our shared passion for Joburg’s Radio Today community station. An intellectual giant (MSc, PhD and MBA – all from Wits) Ivan was a fighter with a splendid turn of phrase. He never shirked from confrontation – one of his favourite sayings being “revenge is a dish best served cold.”
I’m not sure whether Piet Viljoen ascribes to that philosophy, but given our long history it’s a delight to see how this veteran asset manager picked himself up after public humiliation five years ago. Among his detractors back then was straight-talking Magnus Heystek who said Viljoen’s under-performing RECM did not deserve any of his clients’ money. Nedgroup agreed and in November 2015 terminated Piet’s 12 year custodianship of its then mighty Managed unit trust.
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Viljoen took it all on board, said lessons had been learnt and re-assumed personal control of all RECM’s investment decisions. Five years later, Heystek has done a 180. He sent me the graph above showing Viljoen’s co-managed Counterpoint Value Fund beating all peers. And the equally impressive one below comparing it with Growth funds – outperforming all but one of them.
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Maybe it’s Viljoen’s partnership with like-minded Sam Houlie and Ray Shapiro that’s done the trick. Either way, the portfolio reflects some very smart calls – 11% is invested in African Bank inflation-linked bonds (yielding 8.5% real return) and Steinhoff prefs (yielding 18%); with a quarter of the assets spread between ABSA, Nedbank, Discovery and precious metals stocks Sibanye and Harmony. Viljoen is back where he belongs. On top.
TO LISTEN…
Latest audio on BizNews Radio.…..(click on the link to access)
- Magnus Heystek: Piet Viljoen has got his mojo backÂ
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TO WATCH…
On the BizNews TV channel on Youtube…
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- Finance Friday webinar: Your money after Covid-19
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