The man who runs South Africa’s R3 trillion asset manager

When it comes to South African asset managers, few compare to Hendrik du Toit, who transformed Ninety One from a small start-up into the country’s biggest asset manager.

Ninety One, an asset manager with over R3 trillion in assets under management, is dual-listed on the Johannesburg and London Stock Exchange and employs more than 1,180 full-time staff across offices in 15 countries.

Starting as a small company, Ninety One now manages assets whose value is equivalent to the size of the entire South African Collective Investment Scheme Industry.

This impressive growth can largely be attributed to Du Toit, who founded the company and facilitated this development. 

Now considered one of South Africa’s top asset managers, Du Toit was exposed to the industry at an early age.

He was born in 1961 and regards his mother as the biggest influence on his life. His father, who worked as a parliamentary official, died when he was 14 years old. 

He grew up in central Cape Town close to Hoërskool Jan van Riebeeck, where he matriculated. 

His interest in the stock market was sparked when he was still a schoolboy reading share prices aloud from the newspaper to an elderly family friend with poor eyesight.

He attended Stellenbosch University, where he graduated with an MCom, before attending Cambridge University, where he earned an MPhil in economics and politics. 

Du Toit started his first job in 1988, working for the Investment Division at Old Mutual.

As the ‘90s rolled around, though, he became gradually more disillusioned with the company’s inability to adjust to the changing political climate in South Africa.  

In 1991, he finally agreed to go and work for Investec, which had made numerous attempts to headhunt him. 

He was only 29 when he established Investec Asset Management for the company, which would later become Ninety One. 

Investec was a small player in the market, and Du Toit started the business with an empty desk, no computer, and less than R200 million assets under management.

He described those early years as daunting. “We were up against the big established insurers and banks, and investors had become very set in their ways.”  

Du Toit highlighted two factors that accelerated their growth. 

• Firstly, investors were disillusioned by the pedestrian performance of many established local investment firms.
• Secondly, Investec Asset Management bought into the new South African growth story, while the competitors continued to buy the Old SA blue chips. 

“What drove us is that we believed in risk. We had a risk-driven set of products while many others avoided risk,” Du Toit explained.

“If you panicked every time emerging markets caught a slight cold, you would’ve lost a lot of money, whereas if you invested over the longer term and embraced risk, you would’ve done well.”

The business had a difficult few years until 1993, whereafter it grew rapidly, allowing it to expand into the United Kingdom by the late 1990s. 

Du Toit served as Joint CEO of Investec Group from 1 October 2018 until the company demerged two years later.

On 16 March 2020, the company rebranded as Ninety One and was dual-listed on the London and Johannesburg stock exchanges, with Du Toit assuming the CEO role.

He believes the company was undervalued as part of the larger Investec group. The demerger allowed the asset manager to chart its own course with a more “simple and clear” business model. 

Under du Toit’s leadership, the company went from a small start-up to the largest asset manager in South Africa within three decades. 

While at the company, he was also involved in other business ventures. Notably, du Toit has been head of 8 different companies.

He has served on the Leadership Council of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, a United Nations-based initiative since 2014. 

In 2016, he became a Commissioner of the Business and Sustainable Development Commission. He is also a non-executive director of Naspers and its European subsidiary, Prosus.

When asked to describe his recipe for business success, Du Toit said that people, organisational culture, and values are the keys to everything. 

“This is especially important in enterprises that rely more on human capital than financial capital.” 

“Clients like working with happy people and organisations they have confidence in. As head of an investment company that invests our clients’ capital in other businesses, I’ve learnt to look beyond the numbers.”

He explained that successful business leaders are open-minded. “They are alert, take an interest, and always look ahead. They inspire, but they listen as well. They learn continuously.”