As the old proverb goes “The darkest hour is just before the dawn”, and the new year certainly brought with it what felt like a new dawn for South African markets.
In May 2021, host Stephen Backhouse joined Laurium Capital’s Co-founder, Murray Winckler, and Co-portfolio Manager, Dwayne Dippenaar to unpack what this might mean for you and your clients.
We entered 2021 with the tailwinds of global fiscal and monetary support, the global rollout of the vaccine and a recovery of the global economy off the low base set by the near economic standstill induced by the initial Covid-19 extreme lockdowns. We have seen these bullish dynamics play out year to date with strong data out of China supporting commodity prices, and the general reopening of economies as the vaccine gets rolled out supporting stocks that benefit from an economic recovery.The big questions that we now must answer are around the sustainability of the economic recovery and perhaps most importantly, what outcomes have been priced into the valuation of various assets globally and where do we see opportunities that can still provide handsome returns to investors over time?
Laurium Capital is an employee-owned boutique asset manager with offices in Johannesburg, Cape Town and London. Founded in 2008 by Murray Winckler and Gavin Vorwerg, Laurium has grown to R35bn in assets under management and provides a suite of long-only and hedge fund strategies which invest in South Africa as well the as the rest of the African continent.Their team of 29 driven individuals strive to generate returns and service in excess of client expectations. They combine on-the-ground research with extensive local market knowledge to seek investment opportunities. Their skills in stock selection, combined with disciplined portfolio construction and risk management processes deliver superior risk adjusted returns over time.They manage a niche range of unit trusts across the risk spectrum, accessible on most LISPs and their client base is well diversified across high net worth individuals, institutions and retail investors.
