Fund manager Stanlib’s portfolio managers this week reduced the firm’s coverage of South Africa as this country has failed in many ways to make a favourable ambience for “consumer businesses.”

Stanlib believes plenty of rudimentary advances have happened faster in other bigger economies in West and East Africa, prompting its portfolio managers to look to these countries for their money.

Thabo Ncalo, a portfolio manager at Stanlib, told BDLive they have chosen Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Egypt as investment endpoints for the Stanlib fund. The fund is not intended to cover South Africa.

There are other portfolio managers in Stanlib that hold the same viewpoints including the fact that there is too much insecurity about the South African administration’s economic guidelines.

About 85 percent of the fund’s investment goes to the sub-continent of Africa. The fund found Kenya and Nigeria to be attractive for investment because they have healthier stock delivery networks.

Zimbabwe is being covered by the fund because it does not have the currency risk anymore because it adopted US Dollar as the country’s currency.

Stanlib is one of South Africa’s top investment managers and has received numerous awards for investment performance.

Its fixed interest and property teams are known to be the best in the industry. It has investment professionals managing a broad range of local and global equity investments.