Foreign Financial Services 'Eyeing SA'

SA HAD big potential to benefit from the growing trend of outsourcing by foreign financial services companies, Stanley Fink, CE of London-based International Standard Asset Management (Isam), said yesterday.

Fink, who has been dubbed the "godfather of Britain's hedge fund industry" by some, built Man Group from a small hedge fund manager to a publicly traded FTSE 100 constituent with 79bn in assets under management. Isam plans to base its operational team in SA.

Fink said SA had a sophisticated business environment, high standard of technology and well- regulated financial system that compared favourably with advanced countries. Business costs such as for salaries, office space and services were also much lower than in London.

South Africans were in the same time zone, spoke the same language, were either better or just as educated as staff in London and had an "honest, blunt , straight-forward manner" which meant risk or problems could be cleared up quickly.

He said SA's jump from 24th to 5th place for its banking system in the World Economic Forum's recently released Global Competitiveness Index for 2009- 10 was an indication of strong confidence in SA's financial markets, at a time when trust had been eroded in many other parts of the world.

On opportunities for investors over the short term, he said global investment was likely to focus on countries with good demographics, good products and countries with good fiscal policies, which should be good for SA.

In the medium-term future, he claimed to have become "a gold bug ". He was attracted to gold as an alternative currency, as a hedge against inflation after governments had printed money to stave off the global financial crisis. "In England we call it (printing money) quantitative easing," he said.

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