Liberty Life acquires full shareholding in local retirement fund administrator

Liberty Life Namibia announced it has acquired the full shareholding of Specialist Administration Services, an established boutique retirement fund administrator based in Windhoek. The acquisition is effective since the beginning of April.

As of 01 May 2019, Specialist Administration Services’ Managing Director and founder, Monique Cloete, assumes the Managing Director position at Liberty Life Namibia, taking over from Christell Loots.

Liberty’s South African parent said the acquisition signals their intention to expand their Namibian presence beyond their long-term insurance and investment business, noting that local demand for diversified solution is rising commensurate with a growing middle class and business community.

Liberty’s Executive: Liberty Africa Insurance, Stuart Wenman, commented “We are delighted about the acquisition of Specialist Administration Services (SAS). This transaction is critical to enable us to achieve our goals in the Namibian market. We aim to have a well-diversified business that attends to our customer’s needs at every step of their financial journey. The inclusion of a pension administration capability to our current offering allows us to better fulfil this mandate.”

Cloete added, “We are proud to be part of a well-established business such as Liberty. Their ambitions and plans for the Namibian market present exciting opportunities for our customers, staff and various other stakeholders.”

“We strongly believe that it is through finding solutions that create value for all our stakeholders that we achieve sustainability. That is why delivering this value to all parties is our primary objective in our day-to-day interactions,” she continued.

Liberty said the acquisition positions it well in its strategic pursuit of providing a holistic customer value proposition to Namibian employers. SAS has been providing quality retirement fund administration services to employer-sponsored retirement funds since it came into existence in 2013.

Wenman concluded, “We believe that the financial services expertise and knowledge gained over the past decade in Namibia and the bigger Group’s heritage of over 60 years will ensure that we continue to play a positive role in our customer’s lives. We will continue to focus on positively changing people’s lives and to making financial freedom possible.”

With operations in 18 African countries, the Group is positioning itself as a pan-African financial services company.