The company's first employee, now a director, Charlotte Drayer receives a token of appreciation.	Director Marthinuz Fabianus looks pleased as punch as he addresses the gathering.
Founders Tilman Friedrich and Mark Gustafsson congratulate one another on 10 years of sterling successes.	The Principal of Mweshipandeka High School, Mr Erick Kemanya receives an N$13,000 donation from RFS.

On 1 October 1999, Tilman Friedrich and Mark Gustafsson, opened an office in Windhoek. Their new company, Retirement Fund Solutions, had no clients, however they were certain that their venture would succeed as the only true Namibian business in this sector. On the same day, they were joined by their first staff member, Charlotte Drayer. It is a matter of legend that she joined them based on her confidence in their and her own ability, and received her first salary cheque some seven months later, after the company won its first few clients.

Ten years on, the company has become an unrivalled Namibian financial sector success story. It now administers Namibian pension funds holding investments in excess of N$ 6 billion and has gained a market share of 40 per cent of pension funds administered by private sector entities. More remarkably, the company, which is the only wholly Namibian private sector pension fund administrator, now administers the pension funds of many leading Namibian companies and organisations, including all major commercial banks, and it has not yet lost a private fund client to a competitor but rather gained all its clients from competitors and had its mandate extended repetitively in a number of instances.

The company has grown from a staff complement of two to forty six currently. Charlotte Drayer's confidence and her substantial contribution to the success of the company has been given recognition by way of a seat on the board of the company, and shareholding. She has been joined on the board of the company by Marthinuz Fabianus, who has a wealth of expertise in the field of pension fund administration, and Günther Pfeifer and Louis Theron who have a strong track records in the field of finance.

A track-record of trust

Asked about the secret of the company's success, Tilman Friedrich says, “There is no secret, actually. Everything we do is visible to the trustees and members of our funds, as well as our stakeholders in the field of pension funds, and we as owners are present all day and every day to attend to and resolve issues when they arise. We compete against interests that are partially driven by South African strategies and philosophies that very often are not appropriate for Namibian circumstances, so as a Namibian company, we are able to reassure our member funds that our focus is not in any way determined by anything other than their interests and the local environment.”

Partner Mark Gustafsson adds, “Because of the perception that South Africa is better, cleverer and more sophisticated, we intentionally set the bar higher for ourselves and we know we do not have to stand back to any wisdom coming from down south. The core aspects of our philosophy are that we provide excellent administration, prompt answers when they are needed and we share our home grown knowledge with trustees and fund members. When clients do encounter difficulties, they know that they can fall back on us.”

“The company has an excellent reputation as an employer as well,” Friedrich adds. “Many of the best people with whom we worked before opening Retirement Fund Solutions have returned to a warm 'welcome back', and as a result we have the best people who are able to meet and exceed client expectations without compromising on excellence. We owe our growth to their conscientious approach and the corporate culture which they have established. The fact that we lost only 3 staff over the past 10 years speaks for itself and is an important management measure for us.”

10 years of growth

Asked about the growth of the company, Gustafsson and Friedrich both pointed to the success of measured growth. According to the two, the company has had to delay new business in the past in order to maintain the company's standards.

“By not seeking new business at times, we have sacrificed potential profits, but we have focused on maintaining our standards, and the fact that we have not lost a client in ten years speaks for itself,” says Gustafsson. “Sometimes growth can come at a price.”

“We are expecting to grow further in future. When we started, we had one tiny office. We rapidly expanded and had to move to another office which had far more room than we needed, but we filled that space to overflowing rapidly. We had to halt our growth at that point and prepare for additional capacity with training and implementation of systems that were better able to respond to the increased number of funds. Now, as you can see, we once again had to find new premises with more room to grow. We expect to fill the demand which we know exists, but we are doing so in a measured way, with staff that we and the funds that rely on us can trust,” says Friedrich.

“Companies with South African parents, are often driven to grow by targets handed down from across the border, and they struggle to keep up with these demands. We on the other hand have the luxury of matching growth and capacity, in order to maintain our internal standards,” Gustafsson adds.

Benchmarking excellence

Asked about the Benchmark Retirement Fund, Friedrich said, “We established the fund for smaller employers, but also particularly in response to requests from financial managers and wealthy individuals, as a local home for their pension fund investments. The fund is a very flexible fund, but distinguishes itself in the same manner as Retirement Fund Solutions: with excellent administration, prompt responses and sharing of knowledge. It provides a range of investments, but these are cherry picked for performance and match to investment strategies.”

“The fund has grown by leaps and bounds, and recently broke the N$ 400 million mark. We have recently begun developing capacity in that direction as well, and last year made the decision to appoint Günther Pfeiffer, formerly Financial Manager of De Beers Marine, to steer the fund into the future” he says.

The years ahead

Asked about the future, Mark Gustafsson notes, “The Namibian regulatory environment is becoming more complex, sophisticated and demanding on service providers. Some of the challenges facing the pension fund industry are the proposed National Pension Fund, the Financial Intelligence Act and the prudential investment regulation requiring that a certain proportion of pension fund assets are to be held in unlisted equities in Namibia. Our core business is administration of funds, not the actual management of investments, so we are focusing on administration of that class of investment, and we are closely liaising with trustees and local asset management companies to map out a future path for investment in such assets.”

“We know that Namibia is in a growth phase, and we are providing for that by developing Retirement Fund Solutions and its capacity,” Tilman Friedrich adds.

“However, although there may be changes in economy and the regulatory environment, we will retain out focus on our strengths and the quality of our human resources. We administer a group of funds who have been with us for years. We fully expect that to be the case ten years from now,” he concludes.