Coronation’s shares tanking on Peche’s “explosive” disclosures - company urgently needs to respond

One of the SA money management industry’s ultimate insiders, veteran investor Chris Logan, has entered the debate over ‘performance fees’ charged to small investors via big companies’ self-created benchmarks. Logan was a star manager at Old Mutual, BOE Asset Management and HSBC before starting his own company, Opportune, two decades ago. As a shareholder in Coronation, he is urging the company to publicly respond to Ranmore Funds founder Sean Peche’s disclosures, which he describes as “explosive”. Only one of the big companies tagged by Peche for charging fees not countenanced elsewhere (Ninety One) has offered a response - and then primarily because it was inadvertently named instead of Coronation for a dubious practice conducted by its rival. Adding spice to the mix is that Coronation, whose numbers are public because its shares are listed on the JSE, carves out 30% of its profit into a bonus pool for distribution among 160 staff - in its most recent financial year that came to R700m. Logan says such a huge bonus aligns staff with shareholders. A counter is that it may also encourage profiteering of the kind alleged by Peche. Logan discussed the issue with Alec Hogg of BizNews.com.