[JOHANNESBURG, THURSDAY 25 MARCH 2021]

The organisers of the SALTA Awards are pleased to announce the winners of this year’s Annual Awards made to the issuers of JSE listed Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), for investment performance and index tracking excellence for the year ended December 2020.

Satrix Managers (Pty) Ltd has dominated this year’s awards. Of the 23 SALTA Awards, Satrix was the winner in 10 different categories and was placed in the top 3 for all 23 Awards handed out. 

Absa Capital was the second best achiever, winning 5 Awards, with 15 top 3 placings, followed by 1nvest (Standard Bank) with 4 Awards and Sygnia Itrix with 2 Awards. 

In all, 23 SALTA Awards were made for the following categories:

• Total Investment Returns, for 3, 5 and 10 years for SA and foreign referenced ETFs.
• Tracking Efficiency, for low tracking error for 3 years.
• Trading Efficiency, for trading closest to the Net Asset Value (NAV) of the ETF for 3 years.
• New Capital Raised, for 1 and 3 years for individual products, as well as for the issuing houses.
• "People’s Choice Award" – determined by a public poll for South Africa’s favourite ETFs as voted for by the retail investor. 

The winners of the 23 Awards were as follows:

A list of the individual Award Winners, per category, is listed in Appendix A.

The People’s Choice Award, now also in its fourth year, requests the South African investment public to vote for their favourite ETF. A dedicated website is set up for this purpose and this year accumulated a record number of votes, up significantly on the record levels achieved for last year’s SALTA Awards.

Once again, the overwhelming choice for the favourite ETF in South Africa was the Satrix 40 ETF. This was the first ETF issued in South Africa in November 2000. It is an outstanding achievement that, in its 20th year of issue, it firmly remains the people’s choice.

A surprise success as the second favourite ETF, with strong public support, was the Sygnia Itrix 4th Industrial Revolution ETF. This ETF, tracks a global index of companies that are beneficiaries of the worldwide focus on new generation companies that make up the 4th Industrial Revolution. This was the first ETF listed in South Africa that has a “thematic” index exposure, so seeks to benefit from the mega-trends discernible in the international economy.

Several ETF issuers in South Africa have indicated their intention to list further “thematic” ETFs on the JSE during 2021. The positive acceptance of the Sygnia Itrix 4IR ETF indicates that gaining exposure to such global mega-trends in the form of easily traded, low cost ETFs on the JSE, should find further favour with the local investment public.

Of the top ten People’s Choice ETFs, Satrix, with seven ETFs (Satrix 40, Satrix Nasdaq 100, Satrix MSCI World, Satrix S&P 500, Satrix DIVI Plus, Satrix MSCI China and Satrix SWIX Top 40) was the dominant brand. 1nvest (1nvest Top 40 and 1nvest Rhodium) had 2 ETFs in the top ten list, with the Sygnia Itrix 4th Industrial Revolution making up the top ten list.

Analysis of the People’s Choice voting pattern indicates that Satrix overwhelmingly remains the public’s favourite choice as an ETF brand, followed some distance behind, by 1nvest and Sygnia Itrix.

BACKGROUND
The South African Listed Tracker Awards (“SALTA”) are now in their fourth year. It is an initiative by certain service providers to the growing ETF industry in South Africa, who are not issuers of ETFs themselves, to reward such issuers for exceptional products provided to the South African markets.

The JSE Limited, Refinitiv, ProfileData and etfSA.co.za are the sponsors and organisers of these Awards.

A rigorous analysis of daily NAV pricing and other data, provided by the administrators of ETFs to local data collectors has been used to assess investment performance and other ratios to determine the best providers of ETFs in the various categories measured. Only quantitative assessments have been utilised and no subjective judgements were made.

For full summary of award winners, please click here or view here.