Investment Process
Our investment strategy is to maximise the allocation of investment receipts towards retirement funding investments, and to objectively select and manage asset manager allocations on our members` behalf so as to maximise investment returns at an appropriate level of risk.
Destiny uses traditional asset managers but still manages to reduce costs and increase efficiency by using passive management. This is achieved by blending active and passive management in an innovative matrix.
Active management is an investment strategy that tries to create excess returns through the recognition, anticipation, and exploitation of short-term investment trends.
Passive management believes that the market is efficient and that at all times markets incorporate and reflect all information rendering individual stock picking futile. As a result, Destiny utilises index funds in its passive strategy.
The Investment Committee
The investment committee was established to combine the intellectual capital of various stakeholders in order to provide the Trustees with independent qualitative and quantitative investment research. This research ensures the decisions that are made are done so only after extensive debate and deliberation.
The committee includes GIB investment specialists and external, independent investment analysts. Additionally, participating employers are invited to attend and to provide input which results in an objective, member centric investment process.
The Destiny LifeStage Model, approved by the Board of Trustees, invests members’ money according to their age and retirement date using the Destiny LifeStage model. Destiny runs Four (4) life-stage portfolios with time horizons. Each LifeStage portfolio has a different risk and return profile.
The Destiny Life Stage Model
Investment risk is linked to time (the number of years the investment is held). Investment risk is high in the short-term but falls as the time horizon lengthens. A young member should be less concerned about the volatility of investment markets as the investment horizon of retirement savings is a long term one i.e in excess of ten years. The largest portion of the savings of a young member is thus in growth assets such as equities (shares) listed on a stock exchange.
As a member gets closer to retirement a more conservative investment strategy is followed to protect his/her accumulated retirement savings. An older member needs an investment strategy that will provide him/her with capital protection and to ensure that the investment provides a return of at least inflation. Thus, as a member approaches retirement, his/her accumulated retirement savings allocated to equities is reduced.