Kanaan Asset Managers

We are independent DFAs (Discretionary Financial Advisor). These are graduate financial advisors with category II or IIA fund management licenses, the same as the fund management licenses of the fund managers of big institutions like Old Mutual, Liberty Life, Allan Gray, etc. There is however a vast difference between them and us. We do not manage funds in the true sense of the word in the same way they manage funds and we do not see ourselves in the first instance as fund managers, although we are referred to as DFAs, and we do manage two funds in Mauritius via our administrator International Assurance (IAL) LTD, called Currencies Offshore, and Equities Offshore. The other funds as mentioned are either fund of funds or wrap funds which we manage in terms of the selection of funds according to the mandate of the applicable wrap fund or fund of fund. In the case of our two hedge fund of funds we also do the appropriate 3 months and sometimes even longer than 3 months due diligence before we buy them, and we continually check whether the underlying funds of our funds are complying with local/ international regulations.

We believe that good financial advice cannot be given properly without professional investment management. Professional financial advice for clients consists of advice regarding their immediate, intermediate and retirement capital requirements. Immediate capital requirements cannot be calculated if you do not have a reasonable idea of what the average return on the clients’ savings or investments will be up until retirement. There are many funds with lengthy performance track records, which can give you an indication of what the future return of the fund will be, but in the case of all these funds, we do have a problem with the well-known brand names – their fund management styles satisfy only the needs of certain clients where a management style of ‘buy-and-hold’ is followed.

The big brand fund managers are well-known for their notion with regards to investments namely, “You cannot time the markets”. That means that when share markets crash (which happens every ±10 years in a free market), you should not cash in your investments in growth funds, just to switch back to growth funds when you see the market is doing well again. They argue that since nobody knows the day and the date of the crash in advance, the risk is too great that you will switch to cash too late when the market has dropped already by 20% or 40% and since nobody knows where the lowest point of a crash will be, there is a strong possibility that you will only switch back with your cash to growth funds once the market has grown already with 20% or 40% and in the process, you are farming backwards.

The “buy-and-hold” approach is also known as a passive fund management style or the bottom top up approach, according to which you do not sell during market crashes. The big fund managers see a crash rather as an opportunity to buy additional good quality shares, which are busy losing value. Investors who are investing in these types of funds usually find a few years after a crash, once markets have come back, that they are much better off than previously.

Especially not for risk averse people and people close to retirement or already at retirement who have not saved enough to source the income from stable funds like a savings account or money market accounts with low rates of return, usually after tax less inflation. Most people at retirement world-wide need to have most of their capital in growth funds with only their emergency fund in stable funds or one year’s salary in stable funds, which renders a problem because when growth funds go down during a severe market correction or a crash, sometimes with more than 60%, for many months even years, they will start to dig into their capital.

Andre Delport, the founder of Kanaan Asset Managers, discovered that he has a good gut feel to time the big share market crashes, which he timed accurately during the 1987 share market crash, the Far East Pacific Crash of 1998, the IT Bubble Crash as well as the Credit Crunch Crash of 2008, to such an extent that a group of four brokers from Durban approached him during 2003 suggesting a company called Xhilirator Asset Managers Pty Ltd, via which they would have marketed Kanaan Trusts fund of funds for voluntary contribution money as well as the fund of funds for compulsory contribution money to other IFAs.

The success of Kanaan Asset Managers called Xhilarator asset managers Pty Ltd after 2003, to time the big crashes correctly became known even to other brand name professional fund managers, so that one of the well-known fund management companies in South Africa invested during 2006 R15 million of their cash flow in one of our fund of funds, and by the end of 2007 just before the 2008 Credit Crunch Crash, the fund manager of Ovation Pty Ltd phoned us to hear from us what our view is on the market, and we had told him that we have switched to cash, which was just before the 2008 Credit Crunch Crash. Because we managed to time the big crashes our two fund of funds had been doing very well, for instance during the Far East Pacific Crash of 1998 when world markets crashed with more than 60% the Kanaan fund of fund for voluntary contribution funds grew with 56% nett of fees and the Kanaan compulsory contribution fund of fund grew with 52% nett of fees and both funds until the 2008 crash had given average rate of returns usually of more than 15% per annum, which can be confirmed on request.

We became aware of the possibility of the Credit Crunch Crash of 2008 already during 2002 when various economists started to warn that the first world countries are allowing credit to become too easily available to the man in the street, where a plumber could for instance buy a house with his credit card as well as a second and even a third house, which started to cause a property bubble, to such an extent that these economists said that first world countries of the so-called free market would, if they do not start to control credit, be forced to intervene in the share markets, trying to protect many big companies from going bankrupt, like their political opponents, the socialists and the communists, for the first time in the history of the free markets.

7.1 An alternative method of risk management

They predicted the so called Quantitative Easing, where first world governments would start to make debt so as to protect their markets from huge crashes, which would disturb the 10 year interest rate cycle and which would make it thereafter impossible for fund managers like ourselves to time these big crashes, because of which we had started to investigate an alternative method of risk management making use of hedge funds.

7.2 Fine tuning the alternative method has taken more than 10 years

However, we have noticed that during the 2008 Credit Crunch crash, even hedge funds crashed world-wide except for a few which had performed well during the previous crashes of October 1987, the Far East Pacific Crash of 1998, the IT Bubble Crash of 2000, Credit Crunch Crash of 2008 and now the Ukraine Crash of 2022. However, one could not buy most of them because the good hedge funds tend to become too clumsy when they become too big and therefore close for new business. We had to wait for windows of opportunities, when for example a big pension fund would make a withdrawal from one of these hedge funds. It is only since the 1st of Aug 2021, after 10 years that we eventually managed to get a full range of good hedge funds for our Moriah Global fund of fund of with these underlying funds have had a  collective CAR (Cumulative Average rate of Return) nett of fees since the 1st of January 2018, of 26.29%, up to 31 March 2022, with a relative low down STD (Down Standard Deviation) of only 3.33% (as you can see further down in par 8.1 in the spreadsheet below, with the ZAR performance record just next to it). However, as we could only get rid of the underperforming hedge funds during August 2021, the CAR of Moriah Global has increased to only 8.72% nett of fees per annum in USD to the 31 March 2022 since 1 December 2012, and in ZAR 15.08% nett of fees per annum, which is also above average, as shown below in par 7.2.

7.2 Moriah Global USD and ZAR

CAR (Cumulative Average rate of Return)

STD (Standard Deviation)

For more up to date information see the Moriah Global Factsheet and the Moriah Global ZAR Factsheet 

The growth of Moriah Global above since 1 Aug 2021 is a short period, but it is nevertheless impressive taking into account the very good growth, month after month in the face of Covid 19, and even worse the war that started in Ukraine during Feb 2022. Growth figures can be confirmed by the administrator of Moriah Global, IAL (International Assurance Ltd, online@ialpcc.com, +230 269 4400, https://www.international-assurance.com/contact-us), but the very good growth rates, as shown in par 8.1 below, prior to 1 Aug 2021 cannot be confirmed as the names and the particulars of the underlying funds are obviously privileged, a business secret.

Potential for the future:

To show the realistic potential for the future of our Moriah Global Fund of Fund with its current underlying Hedge Funds, we thought to include the collective growth of the current underlying funds since August 2021 in USD and ZAR, under par 8.1 .

Below you will see the historical growth of the underlying hedge funds of Moriah Global, (acquired up to 1 Aug 2021), since 1 Jan 2018. That means that Moriah Global has not had the same growth month after month and year after year before Aug 2021 as shown below. This is because Moriah Global could only acquire all the above-mentioned underlying funds by 1 Aug 2021. The previous performances of the present underlying funds, before Aug 2021, starting four years ago, namely 1 Jan 2018, shows what Moriah Global's CAR (Cumulative Average Rate of return) would have been, if Moriah Global could have had access to its present existing underlying funds since 1 Jan 2018, namely 25.52% in USD net of fees per annum, and in ZAR 32.38% p/a!

8.1 Moriah Global FoF (Potential)

Above you will notice that in ZAR, Moriah Global has a CAR of 32.38% per annum, and for 2021 when you look at the YTD (Year To Date) column it was 30.32% even taking Covid19 into account, and when you look at the percentage per month column you will see that for January 2022 it was 8.69% and February 2022, 8.21% and for March 2022 an unbelievable 20.98% in USD nett of fees, even taking the war in Ukraine into account.  The returns of Moriah Global FoF as per our factsheets, available under “funds”, on the homepage menu can be confirmed by our administrator IAL in Mauritius, and although the above mentioned Moriah Global potential growth with current funds since the first of January 2018 can also be confirmed by IAL, take note that IAL is not allowed to mention the names of the underlying funds to the public or other DFA’s which might be in competition with us.

It is important to take note of the fact that there are ups and downs. You will notice that when you click on funds, on our home page and then on Moriah Global, you will see on the fact sheet that the fund did in ZAR 21.4% (11.70% USD) for 2021, and by 31 September 2022 it had already grown to 59.85% (58.26% USD), but in USD it depreciated for 31 October 2022 with -3.98% (-2.5% in ZAR), for November 2022 -7.31% (-13.08% in ZAR) It nevertheless ended the year with 34.11% (41.25% in USD), but we also need a more stable hedge fund of fund for purposes of emergency or for clients who need their retirement income, called Stable Offshore FoF.

8.2 Stable Offshore FoF (Potential)

In South Africa we created a Stable SA wrap fund which tries to compete with local savings accounts, and which has been doing more than 4% per annum up to March 2022 and competing well with local savings accounts that have been battling to give 3% per annum. For example a client that needs for instance R50 000 per month, we would invest R600 000 p/a of his money in Stable SA, from where he will draw his R50 000 p/m.  We will then strategically withdraw R600 000 per annum, not from his investment in Moriah Global that can go up and down, but from his investment in Stable Offshore,  which consists of hedge funds that do not try to shoot out the lights but try to compete with offshore money markets, but with underlying hedge funds since 1 Aug 2018, which have been giving collectively since the first of January 2018 an amazing 5.98% per annum in USD up to 31 March 2022, as you can see in the spreadsheet below.

Above you will see that the CAR is 5.98% with a very low Down STD of only 2.29% and in ZAR the CAR is 12.58%. Above you will notice that Stable Offshore did 5.49% in Dollar for 2021 and 14.62% in ZAR because of the Rand depreciation but for January 0.5% and for February -0.28% which is the second time in the history of this fund that it had a negative month.

Above you will notice as in the case of Moriah Global's historical growth with current funds since Aug 2021, we have done the same, because of the same reasons as mentioned in par 8.1 above. The real CAR of Stable Offshore since the 1 July 2020 up to the end of April 2022 was 4.76% nett of fees in USD and in ZAR 10.91% per annum nett of fees, which is not very reliable because of the short period of less than 2 years since we have started Stable Offshore since 1 Sept 2021. Because of this, we have shown you the longer-term performance record of the present underlying funds over the period of more than +/- 4 and a half years.

For more up to date information see the Stable Offshore Factsheet.

8.3 Equities Offshore FoF (Potential)

Below you will see the spreadsheet of Equities Offshore with a very high CAR of 19.28% but also a high Down STD of 6.53% up to 31 March 2022.

For more up to date information see the Equities Offshore Factsheet.

Our Equities Offshore that consists of fourth revolution shares and unit trusts like Tesla of Elon Musk that sometimes grow exceptionally well like during 2020 with 743% but can also go badly negative like the -11.36% for January and the -7.08% for February, is for younger clients for the longer term as it is a buy and hold fund where we do not try to time the markets. We manage quite a range of shares like Amazon, Shopify, Visa, Berkshire of Warren Buffet, but also offshore unit trust funds that invest in these fourth revolution shares, like BNP Paribas and JP Morgan.

Above, we have shown the potential growth of Equities Offshore with current funds since August 2021 because of the same reasons as mentioned in par 8 above. The real Equities Offshore FoF has a short history which started only the 1 January 2021 with a CAR over that period of -4.81% nett of fees in USD.