OUR SERVICES: INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT
PRESCIENT INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT OFFERS INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS THAT FOCUS ON THEIR CLIENTS’ NEEDS
Prescient Investment Management offers innovative solutions that focus on managing absolute and relative downside risk specific to its clients’ needs. Although the investment approach has remained largely unchanged over time, Prescient has evolved to include access to new and diversified markets and solutions focused on managing costs in portfolios. Prescient aims to provide certainty to clients.
Prescient Investment Management (PIM) was founded on 1 September 1998 as an independent investment management company specialising in portfolio and risk management. PIM manages money on behalf of retirement funds and vehicles, medical aid schemes, corporate entities, trusts, and individuals. PIM focuses on delivering superior risk-adjusted returns across a range of mandates and this has led to us being one of South Africa’s leading investment management firms in this area of expertise.
For individual investors, we provide appropriate solutions at a fair price as we understand the importance of keeping costs low in a changing investment environment.
Investment Philosophy
Our core philosophy is to preserve capital and to manage relative and absolute downside risk. We have adhered to this approach of money management since inception, adapting processes where changes in the market have created new opportunities or closed past ones.
Our process of limiting downside or relative risk is well suited to clients who are concerned about benchmark relative losses, and also those focusing on absolute capital preservation. This attention to downside volatility is key particularly in environments where assets offer low yields and there is high uncertainty in equity markets and weak economic conditions.
This means that we tailor our portfolios to your individual needs; avoiding any bias in pricing; being totally transparent about costs; ensuring sensible risk-taking and adding appropriate value across our product offering. Our underlying approach is to keep things simple and our process remains the same as it was since inception.
Prescient remains at the forefront of investment management by providing clients with innovative solutions and access to growing markets.
Although PIM maintains its focus on key South African portfolios, as an innovator and in its search for yield, it has added offshore domiciled funds to its range of solutions. These give clients access to other currencies and markets as part of a diversification strategy and also offers access to growing markets where higher return is possible.
Our Approach
A highly integrated and interactive investment team structure that meets your investment mandate.
When engaging with our investment team you will notice that the structure is flat and integrated. The entire investment team including senior managers and the CIO all sit together in an open-plan office. This creates a highly interactive environment that ensures the team delivers on your investment mandate. One will often see a junior analyst sitting near the CIO in order to ensure there is strong skills transfer, a free flow of ideas and this ensures that Prescient’s unique culture and beliefs are instilled in all.
Unwavering in our work ethic, process and investment philosophy.
Core to the investment team’s ongoing success is identifying, nurturing and unlocking people’s potential. Employees are often provided with the opportunity to run with their own new ideas and projects to ensure they remain trend-setters but it is always tested thoroughly using Prescient’s unique and strict processes. While Prescient grows and expands into new markets, we remain unwavering in our work ethic, processes, and investment philosophy to preserve wealth and enhance returns for you as our clients.
Risk management is key to improving performance in an uncertain and volatile environment.
While higher market volatility makes many investors feel uncertain, volatility enhances our ability to improve performance for your portfolio as risk management is key to achieving this. Risk is defined differently by different investment managers, but at Prescient, if we say we are not going to lose money over a 12-month period, it doesn’t mean that we will try not to do that – it means that we will structure the portfolio to ensure that we won’t lose money over a 12-month period. Our clients trust us because they know that when they give us a mandate, we will follow and deliver on that mandate. They know that we will always meet or exceed what they expect us to do.
Clients receive a high level of predictability by engaging in the Prescient experience.
Prescient always focuses on risk-adjusted returns. There’s no point in taking irrational risks for limited returns. Instead of predicting the market, we always look at the range of possible outcomes whether we think they are going to happen or not. We then structure the portfolios to deliver on mandate given all the possibilities. There are outcomes which we think are more likely than others, but we avoid situations where an outcome is likely to affect portfolios adversely.
We make extensive use of financial instruments, both in the interest bearing and equity space to ensure that we manage downside in such a way that the portfolio can still produce upside for you as a client.
Global Investment Performance Standards
Prescient Investment Management (Proprietary) Limited (PIM) is an independent investment management company specialising in portfolio and risk management and claims compliance with the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS). The firm comprises all portfolios managed by Prescient Investment Management (Pty) Ltd.
If you would like to obtain a copy of the firm's list of composite descriptions and / or compliant presentation please contact Nasreen Hisham on nasreen.hisham@prescient.co.za or Lauren Naidoo on lauren@prescient.co.za
Black Economic Empowerment
In terms of the Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Act, Prescient Investment Management is a Level 1 Contributor as verified by AQrate.
