The Glacier International Webinar 2023 was hosted on Thursday, 20 April 2023 and designed for financial and investment intermediaries to better understand global investing in light of the current economic, geopolitical and regulatory environments. The webinar also focused on Glacier International’s Navigate portfolios, giving intermediaries a rich picture of the global investing landscape as they include offshore investing in their clients’ diversified portfolios.
The line-up of industry experts from Glacier International and beyond, spent time shedding light on the many intricate factors that impact on offshore investing and what they mean for clients' portfolios. The webinar was hosted by Andrew Brotchie, Managing Director of Glacier International.
Diversification and opportunities through offshore investing
Andrew Brotchie, Managing Director of Glacier International, opened the webinar and provided a broad overview of the challenging environment for offshore investing over the past 16 to 18 months. He pointed out that interest in offshore investing is growing again, and that opportunities often are hidden in plain sight. He cautioned against getting lost in volatility, as no cycle is permanent.
As an example, he cites the case of the MSCI ACWI which was down 18% over 2022. However, if you looked through the annual figure, the return in the fourth quarter of 2022 was positive 10%, a turnaround which continued in the first quarter of 2023 when the index rose by a further 7.5%. In USD terms, this means that investors could have received an almost 20% return over six months in a market environment that still feels very negative.
This potentially is the next phase and cycle of investment returns, which may be difficult to look through and understand amid negative local and global news. Inflation is higher than expected which means that interest rate tightening is likely to continue.
He emphasised the importance of considering the potential winners in the next cycle, which are likely to have started to emerge, and which present opportunities for local investors who are looking to include offshore investing in their portfolios.
Glacier International remains committed to making offshore investing available on an open architecture platform to South African investors, and giving guidance on funds, managers and markets.
He sketched a brief history of how Navigate – a guided list of offshore funds – was created in 2012, evolved into equally weighted model portfolios and which has since evolved into the optimised model portfolios, all of which give investors the benefit of the analysis and research that is done on the investment side. Recently, Glacier International has launched two low-cost ETF model portfolios which offer global investment management at a total investment cost of around 29 basis points.
Going forward, Glacier International will continue to run and monitor the models; examine new managers and new opportunities including ESG and alternative funds.
What partnering with Glacier International means within the Navigate framework
Hildegard Wilson, Glacier’s Head of Investment Solutions, unpacked the processes that go into fund and asset management research. She helped intermediaries understand the many parts of this rigorous discipline. In following this process framework, Glacier, through its research capability, helps to ensure that the funds on Glacier’s platform – the ones that intermediaries include in their clients’ portfolios – deliver on their objectives and the returns they promise.
Structuring your investments with tax and emigration in mind
Anton Maskowitz, the Fiduciary and Tax Specialist at Sanlam Private Wealth, examined the intricate tax issues related to clients’ offshore . Among others, he helped intermediaries understand what double taxation means; inheritance and estate tax laws in the UK and the US; what SA investors need to know about situs ; and the technical details of asset swaps.
The SA political landscape: reasons for optimism
Frans Cronje is a political analyst, strategic advisor and scenario planner at Frans Cronje Private Clients, a firm specialising in independent political and economic advice and strategy. He presented an outlook on the economic and socio-political environment impacting on South Africans and what is likely to emerge, going forward, and providing scenario planning for South Africa’s future. He proposed reasons to feel optimistic about South Africa’s outlook and five strategic considerations that may shape South Africa in the next 20 years.
