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Investment Strategy

Written by retire on . Posted in Uncategorised.

The contributions that your employer make to the University of the Witwatersrand Retirement Fund are invested for your retirement. Investments are an important part of the retirement Fund because your retirement benefit depends on the amount of money that is contributed and the investment earnings on these contributions, which is directly related to market performance.

The growth or loss on the investment portfolios that your retirement savings in the Fund are invested in has a big impact on the Share of Fund that you get one day when you retire or leave the Fund.

The Board has a well-thought out investment plan, comprising of both active and passive investments.

It is very important for the Fund to have a well thought out investment plan so that your Share of Fund in the Fund will grow over time. The Board offers a range of investment portfolios for the different needs of all the members.

All investment decisions have a certain amount of risk. Usually there is a direct relationship between the amount of risk you take and the amount of return you get. The higher the risk, the higher the return can be over time.

The Board uses portfolios that hold different types of assets (called “asset classes”) to invest your retirement money. There are four main types of asset classes. These are shares, bonds, property and cash. The investment portfolios invest in different combinations of these asset classes. Investment managers decide which mix of asset classes should be held in each portfolio.

The Board has designed 4 risk profiles for the Fund. These are:

  1. Growth risk profile for members under the age of 55, or with more than 10 years to retirement;
  2. Conservative risk profile for members over the age of 55, or with less than 10 years to retirement;
  3. Capital protection risk profile for members over the age of 60 years, or with less than 5 years to retirement; and
  4. Shariah risk profile for members who subscribe to the laws of Shariah.

The Fund uses the Growth Risk Profile as the default investment portfolio for members who do not select explicitly investment portfolios in which to invest.