Derivatives in Pension Funds - Approaches to Managing Risk

Isaac Ramputa is an executive director of RisCura Solutions, the investment consulting and research business unit of RisCura. He has over 20 years’ experience in the financial services industry that includes executive roles at organisations such as the Financial Sector Transformation Council, Batseta – Council of Retirement Funds of South Africa, Business Unity South Africa and the Insurance Sector Education and Training Authority. Isaac served as the Chair of the ASISA Foundation’s Board of Trustees. In addition to his directorship role, Isaac contributes and advocates for the work RisCura is doing in the responsible and impact investing, RisCura’s B-BBEE manager and broker incubation programmes and nurtures and builds relationships with current and prospective RisCura clients.

Monika has two decades of experience in the investment industry and her experience includes portfolio management, manager research, investment operations, research, client servicing, investment consulting – predominantly within the multi-management and investment consulting arenas. Immediately prior to joining the company in 2014, Monika worked at Momentum Manager of Managers as a senior portfolio manager and as the Investment Platform Operations Manager, and earlier in her career worked at Advantage Asset Managers, Accenture, and Momentum MultiManagers.

Jonathan services a range of RisCura’s largest pension fund and medical aid scheme clients. He has 13 years’ financial  services industry experience including asset consulting, financial planning and building analysis and investment platform technology solutions. Jonathan is responsible for the day-to-day management of client expectations and the continuous monitoring and structuring of investment portfolios. Prior to joining RisCura in 2020, Jonathan worked at Momentum Wealth as the head of investment platform capability design and integration. He also worked as the head of financial planning best practice at the Professional Provident Society (PPS).

Suvarn Naidoo holds a BSc Actuarial Science from the University of Witwatersrand,  later attaining his Financial Risk Management (FRM) designation in 2016. Suvarn started his career at Nedbank Limited in April 2008 where he worked in the Balance Sheet Management Division as a quantitative analyst, later joining Absa Capital in 2010 working in the capital management team on risk adjusted performance measurement. In May 2013 he joined Absa Alternative Asset Management as a portfolio manager, responsible for derivatives structuring and co-managed on absolute return funds, as well as passive and active equity funds. Suvarn was one of the co-founders of Khumo Capital in 2018 and heads up derivative portfolio management and execution.

Glanville Retief holds a BCom Hons degree in Mathematics from the University of Stellenbosch.  He started his career in investment manager research and asset consulting in 1999.  In 2004 he joined the Escher Structured Products team, who was appointed by Absa in 2005 to consolidate the group’s derivative-based asset management strategies in a business unit called Absa Alternative Asset Management.  Glanville co-founded Khumo Capital in December 2018 and is the Head of Governance and Risk.

Ms Wilma Mokupo is currently the Head of the Retirement Funds (Prudential Supervision) Department at the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) responsible for the supervision of the financial soundness and prudential supervision of retirement funds registered under the Pension Funds Act and the investment spreading requirements (regulation 28). She is responsible for the preparation of the Pensions contribution to the FSCA Annual Reports to the Minister of Finance for tabling in Parliament. She currently reports to the Deputy Commissioner at the FSCA. She is a seasoned regulator with over twenty-eight years’ experience in regulation and supervision of retirement funds mostly at senior management level (over twenty years as Head of department previously also responsible for friendly societies, licensing of administrators and office visits). Wilma holds a Bachelor of Commerce Degree and an Honours degree in Economics with a distinction in Macroeconomics. She is an alumni of Wits Business School and London Business School having completed the executive development and senior executive development programs, respectively. Wilma was responsible for the development of the first free E-learning tool for trustees on which is now a mandatory requirement for trustees to complete. She was also the FSCA’s subject matter expert for the development of the first national trustee qualification curriculum as the quality development partner (QDP) in collaboration with the QCTO (Quality Council for Trades and Occupations) and industry. Trustees can now obtain a SAQA approved NQF level 5 in line with the principles in the National Development Plan. On a regional level she served as an Executive Committee member of CISNA (the Committee for Insurance and Non-banking Financial Authorities) on market integration, cross border cooperation and financial inclusion agenda of SADC amongst financial regulators and chaired the insurance, retirement funds financial intermediaries and medical schemes subcommittee and the training technical committee of CISNA. She was also responsible for the compilation and coordination of various annual reports for CISNA on www.cisna.net . She also represents FSCA on the XBRL SA board and served on the FSB Pension Fund board for over ten years. Ms Mokupo is the FSCA’s representative on the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors’ (IRBA) Committee for Auditing Standards (CFAS).

Tiego Nxumalo has over 12 years’ experience in Investment Banking. She is currently employed at J.P. Morgan in the Sub-Saharan Africa Markets division; designing, marketing, structuring solutions across asset classes for pension funds, insurance companies and central banks across region. Tiego joined J.P. Morgan in 2011 as in intern in the Johannesburg Branch and has worked in the London Branch covering Sub-Saharan Africa clients between 2016 and 2019. Tiego holds a BCom Degree in Investment Management and an Honours Degree in Financial Management from the University of Pretoria.

Prasheen is a director of RisCura and has been instrumental in the growth of the business since joining in 2000. With a wealth of experience spanning almost two decades, clients benefit from her holistic understanding of the industry as she provides advice to several of South Africa’s largest funds. In her role as consultant, she is responsible for advising clients on investment strategy, manager research, portfolio optimisation, and risk analysis. Prasheen’s versatility and ability to break down complex investment issues and turn them into top-performing solutions for clients in an increasingly technical industry is a rare asset.