Why invest in a unit trust (collective investment scheme)?

Collective investment schemes are regulated, safeguarded, well-managed investments. Here are some of the reasons why unit trust investments have proved to be the safest investment vehicles available to investors in South Africa and abroad.

Role of the Collective Investment Schemes Control Act

• The collective investment industry, commonly referred to as the unit trust industry, is a well regulated industry and is administered in terms of the Collective Investment Schemes Control Act, 2002 (Act 45 of 2002) (CISCA). The purpose of this Act is to regulate the establishment and ongoing management of collective investment schemes.

• The CISCA regulatory framework is specifically designed to safeguard the investments of investors. One of the most important protection mechanisms inherent in CISCA is the requirement that all of the investments are safeguarded by an independent trustee. Furthermore, CISCA requires full disclosure of all costs, details of the portfolios and any other information that investors may require to make a decision before investing. CISCA also ensures that the assets of the portfolios are treated as trust property, with the trustees responsible for oversight of the assets.

• On the whole, the provisions contained in CISCA are the reason why unit trusts are the safest investment vehicles in the industry.

Role of the trustees

• CISCA requires the appointment of an independent trustee to safeguard the investments within any unit trust. FirstRand Bank Limited is the appointed trustee of the Ci Collective Investments Scheme.

• The trustee must be completely independent of the business that administers the unit trust (‘the Manager’) and its holding company, and must not be associated with the Manager or the Investment Manager in any way.

• The trustees are responsible for holding all the assets of the portfolios, as well as any income accrued and earned in the portfolios, in safe custody on behalf of each of the portfolios.

• The trustee must ensure that the assets of the portfolios, which they hold in safe custody, are held separately from the assets of the Manager or the Investment Manager. This means that if anything happens to the Manager or the Investment Manager, the portfolios of the Manager will not be affected. In other words, your investments are always protected against the insolvency of the Manager.

• The trustees are also responsible for oversight of the portfolios to safeguard against potential mismanagement by the Manager. All transactions in the portfolios are monitored by the trustees to ensure that they are conducted in accordance with CISCA and the portfolios’ investment objectives.

Safe investments

• Ci Collective Investments (RF) (Pty) Limited (Ci) is the Manager of the Ci Collective Investments Scheme. The Manager is the entity which has been approved by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) to administer a collective investment scheme.

• All the assets of the portfolios of the collective investment scheme are placed under the control of the trustee, and not the Manager. The assets are considered trust property, which gives the investors further protection through the Financial Institutions (Protection of Funds)Act, 2001 (Act 28 of 2001). The assets are, at all times, ring-fenced within the trust to ensure investor protection. The oversight of the separation of assets is a function of the trustees.

• When an investor wishes to invest in one of the Ci portfolios, they will be prompted, as per the application form, to deposit their funds into the applicable bank account of the Ci portfolios. These accounts are trust bank accounts, in the name of each portfolio, which are under the supervision of our Trustees.

• Once the investment has been processed, the proceeds are used to buy underlying assets within the portfolio. The assets are also registered in the name of the trustee, in trust for each Ci portfolio which, as mentioned before, is controlled by the trustees. The trustee holds all the assets of each portfolio in safe custody for the portfolio.

• At no point in time are the assets of the portfolio registered in the name of Ci or in any other name other than the name of the applicable portfolio. The assets of the portfolio are not included on the balance sheet of the Manager; they are off balance-sheet which means that the solvency of the Manager in no way impacts on the Ci portfolios.

• Each collective investment scheme must be audited at least annually by an independent auditor who has been approved by the FSCA. PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc has been appointed as the auditor of the Manager and of the portfolios.

• The Manager is also reviewed by the FSCA once a year. During this inspection, the FSCA will spend time in the Manager’s offices, reviewing the process documents and any other documents of the Manager and meeting with key staff members. After reviewing the documents and procedures of the Manager, the FSCA will provide the Manager with a report identifying any areas that they feel the Manager will need to focus on or address.

• As an additional safety mechanism, the board of directors of the Manager must have an equal number of independent and non-independent directors.