WeeklySA_AdminMODEL: New initiative targeted at financial advisers and their clients, to simplify and add transparency to investing…
By Priscilla Malinga
A new era in investing has dawned with an investment platform built to shake up the traditional retail investing model in South Africa.
Positioned as a bold alternative to conventional LISPs ((linked investment service provider), King Alexander Investments combines cutting-edge thinking with simplicity, fairness and transparency.
Founder and CEO of King Alexander Investments, David Lloyd states that the platform is designed specifically for financial advisers and their clients, this disruptive platform is rewriting the rules by doing away with sliding-scale fees, charging only when clients ‘win’, and delivering built-in protections, all underpinned by the credibility and customer-first ethos of the King Price brand.
King Alexander Investments mission is to rewrite the rules of retail investing in South Africa. The platform is built for financial advisers and their clients, to simplify and add transparency to investing. Founded by seasoned financial services innovator David Lloyd, King Alexander Investments was born from a clear conviction: that the retail investing model is fundamentally unfair.
“Since day one, these platforms have been too expensive, and investors take on all the risk regardless of the performance that is actually delivered” says Lloyd. “King Alexander Investments changes this as clients now only pay when they are ‘winning’,” he added.
Backed by King Price brand, King Alexander Investments is not just another platform in a sea of sameness. It is a reimagined investment platform, offering discretionary managed portfolios, from an entire range of discretionary fund managers, and strips away outdated thinking while putting fairness and performance front and centre.
This is what makes this investment platform unique to the rest: King Alexander offers a fixed Rand platform administration fee, which means Investor families pay a monthly fee of just R100 + VAT in total, and not a sliding scale based on the value of their investments, irrespective of the number of family members and investment plans. In real terms, a family with R1 million invested between them would typically see a 70%-plus saving.
Secondly they have the ‘only pay when you are ‘winning’ policy. This means investors only pay for asset management and advice fees in the months when their investments have shown growth. Built-in protection is automatically included, which means investors benefit from 100% initial protection with future gains locked in, and executors’ fees are also covered on death. All at no extra charge.
According to Lloyd, the unique model does not just benefit investors, it also gives financial advisers a new edge.
“Every adviser has clients who think their platform fees are too high, or who regularly feel let down when their actual returns are disappointing, given the fund management costs they pay,” says Lloyd. “Some investors are also reluctant to look at anything other than lower-risk funds and lose returns as a result,” he added. King Alexander Investments has been created to be an adviser’s second platform specifically to accommodate all these types of clients.
Lloyd is not new to Investments and has deep expertise. He is a UK-qualified actuary and the original inventor of structured products, and has spent more than 30 years in global financial services, leading innovation at companies like American Express and NatWest Markets in the UK, and more recently at Liberty SA. At Liberty, he created the hugely successful R90 billion-selling Evolve product, and was behind the award-nominated Stash app. Since then, he developed South Africa’s first Shari’ah-compliant life insurance product, with Capital Legacy, as well as a unique Migrant Worker embedded insurance product for the Unisure Group.
In 2022, Lloyd partnered with King Price founder Gideon Galloway and the King Price team, whose track record of customer-first disruption in the insurance industry complements King Alexander’s ethos. Over the past three years, King Alexander Investments has been built from the ground up, with the support of King Price’s in-house actuarial, legal and compliance teams, and expert external advisers. “We are here to help advisers build value whilst empowering their clients to invest with more confidence, get better returns, save money on administration, and get a fairer deal,” says Lloyd. “We knew there had to be a better way. And now, it is here,” he added.
