Letter to investors

We know that we have an enormous responsibility in looking after your money and helping you to achieve your financial goals. We believe that if we can focus on achieving the following three objectives, we will deliver good performance and earn your trust.

• The first and most important is to make sure we always put your interests first. Our goal is to be regarded by our clients as responsible stewards of their money. 
  
  
• The second is that we focus relentlessly on delivering long-term performance across our range. The key premise of Nedgroup Investments’ Best of Breed™ investment philosophy is the ability to identify excellent independent managers who have a sustainable edge and are accordingly able to deliver outperformance over the longer term or full market cycle. We spend considerable time and effort researching, thinking and debating how to identify such managers. We are under no illusion that this is an easy job, or that we will always get it right. What we do hope is that by applying a sensible, disciplined and long-term approach that our range as a whole will deliver for our investors. 
  
  
• And finally we strive to deliver excellent client service. Our aim is to make it simple and easy to deal with us and that we communicate with you in an understandable and transparent manner. 

We know we do not always get everything right but are committed to learn where we make mistakes, and to constantly improve.

In the most recent PlexCrown Unit Trust Survey (as at 30 September 2015), Nedgroup Investments received two accolades of which we are very proud:

• Top ranked manager of South African unit trust funds
• Top ranked manager of FSB approved offshore funds

These rankings measure the risk-adjusted performance of the entire range over three and five years, with the emphasis on the longer period and on funds with a larger amount of assets. It therefore serves as a good proxy for our investors’ experience. It is also very pleasing to see the consistency of this performance. This is the sixth year in a row that we have been placed in the top three.

Specific highlights include: 

• Five of our 19 qualifying domestic funds achieved the highest rating of five PlexCrowns (top 10% of funds in their category):
  
  • The Nedgroup Investments Stable Fund managed by Foord
  • The Nedgroup Investments Global Equity Feeder Fund managed by Veritas
  • The Nedgroup Investments Flexible Income Fund managed by Abax
  • The Nedgroup Investments Entrepreneur Fund managed by Abax
  • The Nedgroup Investments Financials Fund managed by Denker Capital (a division of Sanlam Investment Management) 
• Seven of our 19 qualifying domestic funds achieved the second highest rating of four PlexCrowns (next 22.5% of funds in their category)
  • The Nedgroup Investments Global Flexible Feeder Fund managed by First Pacific Advisors
  • The Nedgroup Investments Core Guarded Fund managed by Taquanta
  • The Nedgroup Investments Core Diversified Fund managed by Taquanta
  • The Nedgroup Investments Mining and Resources Fund managed by Prudential
  • The Nedgroup Investments Property Fund managed by Grindrod
  • The Nedgroup Investments Core Income Fund managed by Taquanta
  • The Nedgroup Investments Bravata Worldwide Flexible Fund managed by Aylett & Co
• All three of our offshore FSB approved funds received either a 5 or 4 rating
  
  • The Nedgroup Investments Global Equity Fund managed by Veritas (five PlexCrowns)
  • The Nedgroup Investments Global Flexible Fund managed by First Pacific Advisors (five PlexCrowns)
  • The Nedgroup Investments Global Cautious Fund managed by The Killen Group (four PlexCrowns)

These awards are a real testimony to our Best of Breed™ investment philosophy that we have and continue to consistently apply and refine. Since December 2004 (45 quarters of data), we have been in the top half of peers 90% of the time and top quarter two thirds of the time.

In terms of improving our service, I am also delighted to announce a number of new initiatives which we believe will make it easier to do business with us and easier to understand your investments.

For investors registered on a secure site (for those who are not, we recommend you do and it is very quick and easy to do by going to our website www.nedgroupinvestments.co.za), you can now add to your investment, switch between unit trusts and redeem securely and easily in a matter of minutes.

Look out for our new, quarterly investment statement which is interactive when received digitally, however also available in print. We believe that it will make it much easier to understand the key elements of your investment and have included a simple guide to help you read it the first time.

Many thanks for your continued support.