Old Mutual Private Equity (OMPE) has taken a shareholding in retirement fund administrator and investment manager 10X Investments.
The stake is not disclosed, but is not controlling.
10X is the upstart investment company which eight years took on the multi-billion rand retirement industry with a simple , low cost and direct retirement solution. Since the company has grown at 50% a year, albeit off a low base. It has R3bn worth of assets under management comprising pension, provident, preservation funds and RA’s. It’s most popular product, the RA, is growing at over 100% a year on the back of good demand from individual investors and very little marketing. It’s corporate client base includes the likes of Deutsche Bank, Macquarie Bank, African Bank, Virgin Active and EOH.
The capital injection from OMPE will not be used to fund 10X’s core business, as this is self-funding. Instead the capital will be used to build the brand and expand the client offering.
” We spent two years building our platform and offering and then another six years building our clients from scratch without any support from an established brand or distribution force” explains 10X CEO, Steven Nathan.
“We need funding to build our brand as we are competing against large companies with very substantial marketing budgets plus substantial broker commissions.”
Nathan says the intention is to raise 10X’s profile in the retirement fund industry, and to communicate its investment.
Source: Moneyweb
Date: 12 February 2014