Top Unit Trusts' Picks

SHARES: ABSA, ANGLOGOLD ASHANTI, NASPERS AMONG MOST POPULAR

- Adriaan Kruger

A look at South Africa's top eight unit trusts based on performance over the last year gives an indication of the local shares that fund managers are betting on to outperform the market and their peers in 2025.

The exercise revealed a slight move towards mining shares, while banks remained firm favourites.

Many of the funds we looked at have large holdings in Naspers and Prosus, for obvious reasons.

Naspers-Prosus is one of the largest groups on the JSE and a cheap entry into Tencent for exposure to the Chinese tech market.

In addition, the group's new ventures are starting to make money, and investors eventually started to approve management's strategy to unlock value by reducing the large discount between the share prices of Naspers and Prosus to the value of the underlying assets.

Other favourite shares include AngloGold Ashanti, Absa, MTN, and Discovery.

Gold
The best unit trust over the past year was the Old Mutual Gold Fund with a return of 40%, due to the increase in the gold price to record levels above $3 000 per ounce.

Gold has increased by more than 80% over the past five years, and the value of an investment in the Old Mutual Gold Fund by a similar percentage.

The fund's portfolio remained largely unchanged for three or four years, with a large holding in Gold Fields (30% of the portfolio according to the most recent fact sheet) and a large investment in AngloGold Ashanti (25%).

SA gold mining companies do not feature, except for a smaller exposure to Harmony Gold. Gold Fields is still domiciled in SA but owns only one gold mine in the country, while AngloGold sold all its local gold mines decades ago.