Sasfin Wealth Wins Top Advice Broker at SA’s Top Securities Brokers Awards

For the second year in a row, Sasfin Wealth has topped the rankings at the Intellidex Top Securities Brokers Awards, retaining our title as the Top Advice Broker in South Africa as well as placing in the Top 5 in the People’s Choice Award. Once again, Helen Haworth enjoyed a well-deserved spotlight, ranking in the Top 3 in the Individual Stockbroker Award.

“Sasfin Wealth is a high-touch hands-on stockbroking, portfolio management, asset management and advisory business,” explains Flynn Robson, Head of Portfolio Management & Stockbroking. “We work on a foundation of comprehensive research and market insights, meaningful, interactive engagements and appropriate, solid advice. Despite the distance created by the pandemic, we have retained our ability to connect, inform and educate clients. We have a simple philosophy – if we do well for our clients, then we as a business do well. We made our sole objective to protect clients, maintain service, connections and relationships as the markets fluctuated. We allowed our market professionals – some of the finest names in financial services – to use their experience to deliver on our multi-strategy, global approach to investing.”

Renamed, and now in its 12th year, Intellidex Top Securities Brokers is a highly regarded evaluation of the industry, due to the fact that surveys are completed by clients, delivering real feedback and ratings from investors. Last year, as an example, Sasfin Wealth scored a perfect 5 out of 5 for its client support, including research and educational tools, as well as 4.67 for its offline support.

The Top Advice Broker of The Year

Sasfin Group is nearly 70 years old, starting out as a textile trading business before moving into financial services in the mid-60s. The 2000 acquisition of Frankel Pollak Securities (established in 1890) served as the foundation for Sasfin Wealth – a multi-asset, multi-boutique money manager servicing private and institutional clients. Sasfin Wealth is often credited with pioneering the private client portfolio management and stockbroking industry in South Africa and today offers an array of solutions including discretionary management, deal and execution, wealth advice, fiduciary services, healthcare and asset consulting. In the deal and execution space, portfolio managers and brokers offer a high-touch execution service, trading on behalf of execution clients when electronic or telephonic instructions are received. The firm believes this is a great value-add for clients since they can leverage the brokers’ market knowledge and execution and risk management skills. For those interested in having their assets managed on their behalf, Sasfin Wealth offer global solutions – both model and bespoke.

Clients have access to an online portal that provides them with extensive information linked to their products, holdings and investments. It includes analytical tools, research, watchlists and customised profiles.

Its online investing is now enabled and clients can access voluntary, pre-retirement and post-retirement managed solutions via a digitally enabled process. Non-managed online share trading and investments are also enabled. A content hub has been launched where research, market commentary, insights, CRS, webinars and news are accessible. Sasfin Wealth has also introduced several new investment products including local and global model portfolios, as well as private market solutions.

“This last 18 months has been significantly more complex with most South Africans applying a global lens when looking at their wealth requirements. In terms of both discretionary and advice services, a borderless value proposition is now required. This involves innovation, technology, multi-regional competencies, and a firm grasp of ever-evolving local and international regulations. Perhaps most importantly, we believe the creation of wealth is about more than just growing financial net worth. True wealth incorporates both financial and non-financial aspects such as physical health, emotional well-being and achieving personal aspirations on a global scale,” added Robson.

Industry context

Conducted between July and August 2021, The Top Stockbrokers survey is now the industry’s premier research exercise through three methods of questioning and research. First, a comprehensive questionnaire is sent to stockbrokers, asking for details of their products, pricing and market positioning. Second, a mystery shopping and desktop research exercise is undertaken by Intellidex analysts to verify information provided and assess transparency and responsiveness. Finally, a major online survey is undertaken of retail stockbroking clients. Clients rank their brokers on numerous factors, and these scores determine the important People’s Choice Award and feed into the other scoring categories where relevant. The Top Advice Broker and Online Broker scores reflect a combination of Intellidex’s views and client feedback.