CAPE TOWN, April (ANA) - Africa's largest asset manager, the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), does not own the assets that it manages on behalf of its clients including the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF), Parliament heard on Tuesday.
“The PIC does not own the assets that it manages on behalf of its clients, no matter who that client is," GEPF principal executive officer, Abel Sithole, said during the public investment corporation amendment bills programme review held in Parliament.
"So if you had to look at the annual financial service of the PIC, you will not see the investments of the GEPF in the statements of the PIC, you will see the investments of the GEPF in the GEPF annual financial statements.”
He added that the assets of the asset owner appear in the financial statements of the asset owner, and disclosed in that asset owner.
"So if you’re are forcing the asset manager it’s like going to Sanlam and saying disclose the assets of another investor. But you can come to the GEPF and say yes disclose, but in terms of reporting, the assets of the GEPF do not appear in the financial statements of the PIC but appear in the financial statements of the GEPF."
Sithole was responding to the committee's comments regarding the governance structures involved in the relationship between GEPF and PIC and the matters of investor security and confidence.
He stated that there needs to be an understanding of the governance structures, the processes and the procedures that exist in managing the relationship between the principals who are the asset owners and the agent who is the asset manager, adding that the committee needed to understand that there were structures and processes that actually exist in how the relationship between GEPF and other clients of the PIC is managed.
- African News Agency (ANA)
