Carly Esterhuizen, CMO at EasyEquities, sat down with Shaun Krom, Chief Investment Officer at EasyAssetManagement, and David Oberholzer, MD at EasyETFs, to talk about the newest fund in the range and the thinking behind it. Watch the webinar or read the highlights below.

Many investors already invest across EasyETFs, and the funds that open up global markets have become firm favourites. Now the team at EasyETFs is bringing one home.

The EasyETFs SA Equity Best Ideas AMETF is an actively managed ETF that invests in selected South African companies. It's managed by EasyAssetManagement, whose investment team is led by Shaun, who has more than 20 years of institutional investment experience across South Africa and the United Kingdom. It's also the 14th AMETF from the team at EasyETFs, or as David put it, the move off the baker's dozen.

Why The Global Funds Struck A Chord

When Carly asked why investors have taken so well to the global AMETFs, Shaun pointed to the way they're built. The market is full of products that look much the same. The team's view is that if you want a different outcome over the long term, you have to do things differently: be more concentrated, hold stronger convictions and follow the themes and tailwinds moving the global economy. That's a different idea from a diversified product that tries to do everything for everybody.

Why Local, Why Now

David sees a gap. A lot of ETF assets sit in foreign markets, and while great managers are bringing South African products to market, there's still room for more. In his words, ETF investors don't go global because it's all they want. They go global because the choice at home has been limited.

For investors who already hold global funds, a local option adds another layer of diversification, and another way to build the portfolio they have in mind.

What The Fund Is Designed To Do

Shaun suggests thinking of it the way you'd think of the global fund, rather than the AI fund, which is thematic by design. The team can invest anywhere in the South African market, with high-conviction, thematic choices.

He's clear that this isn't about being different for the sake of it. There are hundreds of ETFs and hundreds of unit trusts that give you South African exposure, but not many are run by a team willing to say it has a strong opinion on a particular company, and then back it with more than a 1% slice of the portfolio. Spreading your money thinly across everything diversifies your risk, but Shaun's point is that it can also dilute your returns. The team would rather take a big swing on the ideas it believes in most.

How a company earns its place

The process starts with themes. Shaun uses the AI theme as an example: connecting a whole lot of GPUs together takes a huge amount of copper, so demand for copper becomes part of the story. Another theme the team follows locally is the rise of South Africa's middle class.

Once the team has a theme, it asks which companies are really benefiting from it. That's where the numbers come in: who produces the highest free cash flow yield, who has the best margins, who runs the most efficient operations. The team looks at these across a full economic cycle, not just at today's snapshot.

Then comes the human part. Do you like the management? What do they say on the earnings call, and do they go on to do what they said they would? Is the company cheap or expensive? Put the theme, the numbers and the company research together and you have a portfolio.

The work doesn't stop there. The team keeps checking. If management didn't deliver, or margins are slipping, it might be time to sell. If the numbers are moving in the right direction, it might be time to buy more. Themes get the same treatment. If the AI story looks a little less strong than expected, the team may want less copper rather than more.

As Carly pointed out, that's a big part of the appeal of an actively managed ETF. You don't have to keep reassessing every holding yourself, because a professional team is making those calls.

Who It Might Suit

David calls it a great building block for a portfolio, one that's designed to chase alpha, the extra return an active manager aims for over the market. It's a long-term idea, so it suits someone with a horizon of five, six or seven years, who's comfortable weathering the cycle and believes that long-term themes emerge and benefit over time. There's no specific age or investor profile. It's for anyone looking for that bit of extra potential.

Shaun frames it as a question of what you're trying to achieve. If the market return is good enough for you, that's perfectly fine, and a passive fund will do the job. If you'd like a different approach, this is one way to bring it in. How much you hold is up to you. Someone with a long horizon who's happy to sit through the dips might make it a big part of their portfolio, while someone who watches their portfolio daily and worries about every small dip might keep it to something like 5%.

You can also combine it with other building blocks. You might want some protection from a value manager, some exposure to where the money is moving through this fund, and a passive fund as your base. Everyone constructs their portfolio differently.

Where To Find It

The EasyETFs SA Equity Best Ideas AMETF is available in your ZAR and TFSA accounts.

To find it, log in to EasyEquities and search for the fund in your ZAR or TFSA account.

What stood out in the conversation was how much thinking sits behind the fund. As Carly put it to Shaun and David at the end of the webinar, it's good to hear the thinking behind the fund, and not just what's in it.

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