Sanlam UK's Polin: What The Geopolitical 'palette Of Tension' Will Mean For Our Business

This is all alongside growing Sanlam's partnership programme, which it did through the purchase of Cheltenham-based financial adviser network business Tavistock Financial almost two years ago.

"When businesses come to us, they usually want one of two things. Succession finance - the senior partners are looking to leave the business, but they do not want to sell it to a consolidator. They are going to pass it onto the next generation. 

"And, of course, the next generation has not got the money to pay them out. So we will supply that succession finance and then the business comes restricted to us, keeps its own brand, and it manages its own way forward," Polin explained.

"The other reason people want to join us is because they also want to play in the consolidation space - at a smaller level than we would want to - but they have not got the money to do that, so we will loan them the money to do those deals. 

"And again, they become restricted to us and the businesses they buy also become restricted to us. It grows our footprint."

New fund launches

After what has been an incredibly busy couple of years for the firm, the CEO says the transformation journey of the business itself is "just about to end". 

However, Polin and the team are busy creating and launching new funds for investors, as well as considering adding vehicles in entirely new asset classes for the firm.

For instance, Sanlam UK is set to launch a US long/short equity fund at the end of September, which will be headed up by value specialist Adour Sarkissian.

Polin also says the firm will launch two new multi-asset funds at the start of next month, which will be added to Sanlam UK's existing three-strong range of funds that have primarily been launched for its own financial planning firm.

The two multi-asset launches are subject to regulatory approval.

"We want our clients to have a multi-asset solution, which is why we have these funds," Polin explains. 

"I also wanted to move away from a majority of our DFM capability relying on third-party funds.

"So, in our multi-asset funds, we invest in direct equity, direct fixed income, and that is a really important way of keeping down the costs.

"We have also launched a new white label advice platform alongside Hubwise for our financial planning business.

"Overall, this is reducing the fee from near the 2% mark, to between 110 and 115 basis points.

"We are moving our own clients from our models into our multi-asset funds that are suitable for them, and giving them a significant price reduction."

Meanwhile, Polin says there are plans in the pipeline to launch a Sharia law fund, which will be modelled on the existing £438m Global High Quality fund, as he has noted a particular demand from the firm's clients in Northern Africa.