Our subsidiary in South Africa is a reflection of our global expertise, and capitalises on the direct access to international best practice and risk management experience. The objective is to offer the local market the same support and consultation that exists in the European and U.S markets.
Our immediate focus is to help local asset managers with their risk reporting structures, specifically in terms of Basel II requirements, where institutional investors are part of an international banking group. The impact of this regulation on independent asset managers is yet to be determined, but it is safe to assume that the institution will invest with the manager that meets the reporting requirements to lower the group’s capital adequacy requirements. Moreover, businesses that have niche subsidiaries split into individual units need to implement a risk management strategy within each business unit, which forms a part of the group risk management strategy, but is customised to optimise the relevance of the risk indicators pertinent to that unit’s particular style, strategy, and process.
The primary difference between OTC Conseil and other consulting firms is that our consultants are all experienced professionals with financial market backgrounds, and have been involved directly with the evolution of the industry from our client’s perspective. Our impressive list of clients agrees that we fill a particular niche in the market. We do not compete with auditing firms or IT companies, but rather compliment their services, and offer strategic and management consulting that is efficient, adds value to your business, and optimises performance. We are currently in the process of developing an internal risk cartography offer, to Asset Managers who have a strategy in place, and are seeking verification or a comparison to international best practices. This will be a short and efficient way to determine the model integrity.
A second part of our strategy is to help the local industry to create a higher market impression internationally, and to facilitate exchanges between French and South African managers and investors. Our understanding of the local market, and the needs that exist compared to the European markets, has been verified through our South African Asset Management Industry Survey, which was completed in August 2008. We have already arranged two successful exchanges between French and South African concerns.
