Sanlam has a presence – both directly and indirectly – in 38 countries on the continent making it Africa’s largest non-banking wealth business.
Recently it swapped out of its stake in Summit Trust International, to solely focus on Mauritius – exiting Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and Guernsey.
“In Europe we have always been sub-scale,” Tremeer told International Adviser. “We thought to ourselves where is the future coming from – do we want to be small player in Europe or a big player in Africa. We made the latter decision.”
“The Swiss trust industry is facing significant head winds with referrals, which mostly come from the banks, coming under pressure as regulation tightened.
“It just didn’t make sense to be in such a high cost jurisdiction if your future growth is not coming from that jurisdiction,” explained Tremeer.
Origins
SPW started out as a stock broker in South Africa with acquisitions from Merrill Lynch and ABN Amro before expanding internationally.
Sanlam has grown across the continent chiefly through English speaking south and eastern parts as well as through its recently acquired strategic stake in Saham Finance, the Moroccon insurer, which has expanded SPW’s presence into north and west Africa.
Future
SPW move into Mauritius is to provide a hub from which to leverage the Sanlam and Saham footprint to pursue high net worth clients across the continent.
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