From zero to R460 billion in 20 years

Sygnia has grown its assets under management to over R460 billion in 20 years, with the asset manager rapidly growing its offering to take on established players in South Africa. 

The company is well-known for its innovation in the asset management space, with its operating model being distinctly different to those seen 20 years ago. 

It launched with its own customised investment strategies and its signature range of multi-manager funds that were among the first to blend actively-managed strategies with Sygnia’s passive investment strategies. 

Many asset managers in South Africa relied heavily on large advisory services to funnel clients into their unit trusts or retirement products. 

In contrast, Sygnia focused heavily on index-tracking funds through its Itrix range, which is offered directly to consumers as exchange-traded funds (ETFs). 

In the company’s annual report for the 2025 financial year, CEO and founder Magda Wierzycka outlined the business’s growth and how it has evolved over time. 

Wierzycka explained that the past year has been characterised by immense volatility, driven by sentiment, geopolitical shifts, and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). 

Despite this, Sygnia continued its strong growth, with its assets under management soaring by 31.2% to R461.2 billion and revenue crossing R1 billion for the first time. 

Profit after tax rose by 10.4% to R383.2 million, which enabled Sygnia to increase its total dividend for the year to R2.31 per share. 

The company benefited from a strong performance by the JSE in 2025, with the resources index surging by 116% year-to-date. This has seen the JSE All Share return close to 50% in dollar terms so far in the year. 

Wierzycka explained that Sygnia is comprised of five business pillars, which include asset management, institutional administration, an umbrella fund offering, stockbroking services, and a retail division. 

“Our focus on the vertical integration of services we offer to both institutional and retail markets has served the company well in attracting and retaining clients,” Wierzycka said. 

This has also enabled the company to expand the range of services offered to clients under a single roof, making Sygnia an effective one-stop shop for asset management. 

One of its key attractions is Sygnia’s focus on thematic investing in the area of technology, Wierzycka explained. Crucially, this translates into new business flows. 

The company has continued its innovation, launching the Sygnia Life Bitcoin Plus Fund in 2025 to enable exposure to cryptocurrencies in a regulated manner rather than opportunistic trading. 

“Our institutional administration service, which we pioneered in South Africa in 2006, is powered by our proprietary Sygnia Platinum investment administration system,” Wierzycka said. 

“It delivers a unique end-to-end solution that ensures the timely management of cash flows, cost optimisation and accurate reporting, among other key functions.” 

Sygnia has been providing this service to some of the largest retirement funds in the country since its inception, consistently expanding its client base over the years. The past year was no exception, with Sygnia securing three very significant retirement funds as new clients.

Wierzycka said the umbrella fund offering continues to grow despite intense competition from insurance giants in the space, with standalone funds consistently collapsing into umbrella funds. 

Outside of these offerings, the retail business continues to grow strongly, with its assets under management rising to R90.4 billion in 2025. 

Sygnia remains the second-largest ETF provider in South Africa, with its product range ending the financial year with R48.9 billion in assets. 

The woman behind Sygnia

Sygnia’s growth and history over the past 20 years cannot be separated from the story of its founder, with Wierzycka having led the company for most of its existence. 

Born in Poland in 1969, Wierzycka grew up in a two-bedroom flat with her sister, brother, grandmother, and parents as the country’s economy began to fail. 

The family would move to Austria in 1982 due to Poland’s gradual economic collapse and the impact of sanctions on the country. 

Austria was not far enough away from Poland, as the family moved to South Africa with only $500 in their bank account. Wierzycka was sixteen at the time and completed her schooling at Pretoria High School for Girls. 

The young Wierzycka then attended the University of Cape Town and earned a Bachelor of Business Science and a Postgraduate Diploma in Actuarial Science in 1993. 

To help the family fund her education, Wierzycka earned a bursary for her university studies and worked at a supermarket selling cheese and cold meats during high school. 

Wierzycka worked straight out of university at Southern Life to repay her bursary. She moved to Alexander Forbes, where she built an asset consulting division for its retirement fund clients. 

This gave Wierzycka vital experience and showed her that being an actuary was not right for her. Investing and asset management proved more enjoyable. 

In 1997, she took the risk of joining Coronation, a relatively small asset manager at the time. Wierzycka was only the 14th employee. 

Wierzycka has described her role at Coronation in her book, Magda: My Journey, as being instrumental in growing it from a startup to a large asset manager as the head of its institutional business. 

After six years at Coronation, which is now an asset management giant, Wierzycka became CEO of the African Harvest Group. 

As CEO, she negotiated the sale of African Harvest Fund Managers to Cadiz Financial Services and led the management buyout of the rest of the business. 

The remainder of the business became Sygnia Asset Management, which Wierzycka founded in 2006 with R2 billion in assets under management.

While the company built out its investment platform to offer retail investors a full suite of products, Wierzycka was busy investigating an investing style that had become extremely popular in the United States – index tracking.

The asset manager also greatly boosted its index-tracking offering by buying db X-trackers from Deutsche Bank and renaming its Sygnia Itrix. After this acquisition, it became the largest provider of international ETFS in South Africa. 

Despite the rapid growth of its ETF business, Sygnia’s bread and butter remains more traditional employee benefit funds and has leveraged its strong relationship with employee benefit consulting firms to grow this part of its business. 

The company’s tremendous growth in assets under management has translated into a strong financial performance since listing on the JSE in 2015. 

Since listing, Sygnia’s profit after tax has grown from R59.3 million a decade ago to R383.2 million in 2025.