Wealth & Finance International - January 2017

Wealth & Finance International 40 Sentinel Retirement Fund ver the robust decades when South African mining led the world, Sentinel built up the institutional expertise to provide a compelling value proposition for its participants, delivering consistently excellent investment returns, a broad range of member focused benefits and services, all at a highly competitive cost structure. Sentinel provides an in-house financial advisory service for its member- ship, at no cost, that aims to educate individuals on financial discipline and the importance of saving and preserving retirement savings from a young age. This service also advises members on important life chang- es and decision-making around the Sentinel product range, to ensure effective long term saving. By providing flexible and dynamic fund products, Sentinel allows its members to choose the most suited product to meet their individual post retirement income needs, while also providing default options that are designed for those who prefer not to manage their own affairs. This concept is further supported by Sentinel’s seamless and costless transi- tion of a retiree from contributing member to pensioner status. To enable contributory members to save sufficiently for their retire- ment years, Sentinel’s LDI driven investment strategy aims to provide a post-retirement income replacement of at least 75% of final salary (assuming contributions are made at 15% over a 40-year working life). The Fund’s Asset Liability Modelling shows that members can actually achieve well in excess of this replacement ratio. For pensioners, the strategy is geared to maintain the purchasing power of pensions on a level of at least 80% of inflation. In addition, annual bonuses are also awarded to annuitants and these have exceeded 10% of annual pen- sion over the past ten years. Although the South African retirement industry is mostly well structured, regulated and operates effectively, many individuals who have the opportunity to save for retirement still do not do so sufficiently. Citizens impoverish themselves and place themselves in a position where they erode security in old age, undermine the alleviation of chronic poverty, and increase reliability on others including the State. South Africa’s National Treasury (NT) initiated a retirement reform programme in 2012 to address shortfalls in the current system. The process started well, with a number of proposals being legislated in 2014, but has since hit an obstacle as actual implementation of certain proposals were postponed from 1 March 2015 to 1 March 2016, and now to 1 March 2018 or later. Given the potential for South Africa’s retirement industry and the knowl- edge that the reform process is underway and that the various obstacles will be overcome, further growth can be expected from this sector in coming years. Name: Eric Visser, Chief Executive Officer Pension Fund: Sentinel Retirement Fund Email: [email protected] Web Address www.sentinel.za.com Address: PO Box 61172 MARSHALLTOWN 2107 Telephone: (011) 481 8000 Sentinel, a self-administered defined contribution pension fund was founded back in 1946 as a mining industry only fund, but in recent years has evolved to position itself as a highly competitive fund available to all employers in South Africa, both large and small. The Board of management had long ago understood that mining in South Africa was a mature industry with limited expansion opportunities. O 1707WF27