Sanlam to Take over Ovation Administration

Metropolitan Life to move living annuities to Sanlam subsidiary Glacier Financial Solutions This is due to mismanagement by Ovation underwriters.

When Ovation Global Investment was placed under curatorship in 2007 following financial mismanagement, its underwriters, Metropolitan Life, requested that the group's living annuities be transferred to Sanlam subsidiary, Glacier Financial Solutions.

This means that from the end of July 2010, Ovation clients will be guaranteed of top notch administrative support.

"We selected Glacier for a number of reasons," said the Chief Executive of Metropolitan Retail, Philip Matlakala. "Firstly, Glacier is part of Sanlam, one of the largest life insurance groups in South Africa with an exceptionally high level of commitment to corporate governance and best practice, offering our Ovation clients complete security."

"Secondly," said the CE, "Glacier is the largest linked investment service provider SA, offering the widest investment choice. We believe it will deliver exceptional investment value to Ovation policyholders."

Metropolitan said that would honour the payment of nearly R70 million worth of compensation to Ovation clients who were affected by the mismanagement.

According to the CE of Glacier, Metropolitan Life will remain the underwriter of the annuities and will create a new living annuity product in a bid to administer them under Metropolitan's operating license.

"Living annuity investors will benefit from the transaction because they will gain access to all the unite trust funds available on the Glacier platform," said Anton Raath. "With the assistance of their intermediaries they will have to be able to switch and rebalance their portfolios and have access to the full range of web based services."