Allan Gray cut their client fees?

What an exciting bit of news for a change.  Just when everything else is going up, Allan Gray announce that as of 8 April 2013:

"Allan Gray will use the total aggregated balance across all local platform investment accounts held in a client’s name to determine the client’s annual administration fee. "

What this means is that as an Allan Gray client you will be charged a lower (That's right lower) annual administration fee if you have more than one local platform investment account in your name (i.e. under your individual investor number), and the total aggregated balance across your local platform investment accounts exceeds R 1,500,000.00

There are no fees on Allan Gray Funds, only on third party funds and the fee on the majority of them are 0.10% p.a. after the rebate is taken into account.

Once the total amount invested is in excess of R 2,500,000.00, you are actually paid rather than charge a fee! 

Now that is great news.  Thank you Globafundi for this good news snippet.

Investec and getting a home loan!

Investec do home loans

Well the buzz is on that Investec are running home loan campaigns with the two top Mortgage originator companies in South Africa, namely Betterbond  (and their agents)and Ooba (and their agents) and this has generated some excitement into an otherwise lackluster mortgage market.

So what do you need to qualify for this private Banking service and is it for everyone.  the answer is no, it is niche market and the criteria is fairly rigid.

We know that the products on offer are simply put:

1. From cradle to grave for specifically targeted professionals.
2. Employed folk who earn seriously good salaries, above R 800,000 per annum and working for hot companies.
3. Self-employed professionals with a degree in specific areas with  R 800,000 and above personal annual take home salary.
4. Self employed, non professionals who need some seriously unencumbered assets.
5. Solid and liquid asset based owners and also those with great share portfolios.

Sp from what we understand so far is that these folk above who fit into this mold would be able to get excellent deals up to 100% loan to value with interest rates varying between -1% to prime.

So if your favorite mortgage originator is part of the above groups, ask them to see if you qualify - this could be your best deal of 2013.