South Africa’s state-owned asset manager pays its average employee R1.7 million a year

The average employee at the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) received a total pay package of around R1.7 million in 2025. 

This is higher than at the Reserve Bank, where the average employee is paid R1.4 million, and is significantly more than the National Treasury’s average of R600,000. 

The differences in employee compensation at these public institutions reflect their different mandates, staff sizes, and numbers of highly skilled employees. 

For the PIC, the average employee’s total salary is greatly boosted by its significantly smaller workforce compared to the Reserve Bank and the National Treasury. 

While those two institutions employ 2,640 and 1,028 individuals, respectively, the PIC has a staff complement of only 443. 

This is due to the nature of asset management, which is typically done by highly efficient companies that benefit from economies of scale. 

At its core, that is exactly what the PIC does – it is effectively a giant investment fund manager that is owned by the South African government. 

The PIC’s primary mandate is to invest and grow public funds while achieving development goals set by the government.  

Most of the R3 trillion in assets managed by the PIC comes from the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF), which manages the retirement savings of 1.2 million civil servants. 

The PIC also manages pooled funds for the Unemployment Insurance Fund and the Compensation Commissioner Fund. 

This makes the PIC the largest institutional money manager in Africa and a vital pool of capital for investment in local financial assets and development projects. 

Much of the funds managed by the PIC are invested in local equities, with it holding major stakes of more than 10% in South Africa’s largest companies, including MTN, Standard Bank, Sasol, and Naspers. 

This is coupled with investments in government and corporate bonds, as well as an extensive real estate and unlisted investment portfolio. 

All of this amounts to the PIC making a substantial sum of money in the form of management fees for the work done by its 443 employees. 

This results in a highly paid workforce, with Codera Analytics reporting that the average total pay package at the PIC was R1.7 million in 2025. 

The PIC’s trials and tribulations

The PIC is one of the oldest operating companies in South Africa and among the oldest state-run asset managers in the world. 

Founded in 1991, the PIC was initially called the Public Debt Commissioners (PDC) and was mandated to manage the pensions of employees from the government, provincial bodies, and the South African Railways. 

The PDC was run extremely conservatively, effectively serving as a source of demand for low-yield government bonds, with the Treasury leveraging the capital to fund state infrastructure projects. 

Looming democratic elections and an integrated state forced the PDC to be radically overhauled in 1993, with the GEPF being formed to consolidate racialised public pension funds. 

This was coupled with the ANC government’s decision to make the PDC operate more like a modern asset manager rather than a government department. 

As a result, the PIC was created in 2004 with its own board and corporate structure. While this was a positive change, the seeds of future trouble would be sown at the same time. 

The PIC Act of 2004 instituted the asset manager’s new dual mandate. It would now have to deliver financial returns for its clients and drive developmental investments.

In particular, the PIC would be used to drive Black Economic Empowerment through ownership stakes in major JSE-listed companies, which it could leverage to push transformation in democratic South Africa. 

This shifted the PIC away from being a pure asset manager operating in the best interests of its clients by generating returns, to also being a tool to achieve political aims. 

The impact of this would be felt during the era of state capture, with political interest in its trillions of rands worth of assets rising. 

Under political pressure, the PIC invested billions of rands in high-risk, politically connected companies, such as VBS Mutual Bank and Ayo Technology, among others. 

The Mpati Commission in 2018 and 2019 investigated allegations of corruption and fraud at the PIC, many of which were found to be true. 

The commission’s report revealed a general disregard for governance, bypassed investment processes, intense political interference, and criminal activity at the PIC. 

It recommended an overhaul of the PIC’s governance framework, which is steadily being implemented. 

Labour union representatives are now mandated to be on the board to protect the interests of workers, and new investment processes have been implemented.