Ninety One
Ninety One is moving its two actively managed income ETFs off Prescient’s ETF platform and onto its own. For investors, almost nothing changes: the same team manages the money, the ETFs still feed into the same underlying funds, and the TER stays at 0.45% a year. If you hold either ETF and do nothing, you will be counted as voting in favour and your units will simply be swapped for new ones in January.
What is happening
The Ninety One Diversified Income Prescient Feeder Actively Managed ETF (91DINC) and its offshore sibling, the Ninety One Global Diversified Income Prescient Feeder Actively Managed ETF (91GINC), were listed under the Prescient ETF Scheme. Ninety One ran the portfolios, while Prescient provided the legal wrapper, administration and governance.
Ninety One has now set up its own ETF scheme and wants to move both funds into it. They will become the Ninety One Diversified Income Feeder AMETF (91DIN) and the Ninety One Global Diversified Income Feeder AMETF (91GIN).
Why?
This is housekeeping and makes sense. Ninety One wants end-to-end responsibility for its ETFs, from managing the portfolio through to running the scheme, and a direct relationship with the people who own them. It is a well-worn path: managers launch on a white-label platform like Prescient to get to market, then bring the products in-house once the range has enough scale to justify it.
What changes and what does not?
Both ETFs remain feeder funds into the same underlying Ninety One funds. The benchmarks (STeFI Composite for the local fund, overnight US dollar SOFR in rand terms for the global fund), the 0.45% annual management fee and the ASISA classifications are all unchanged. The investment policy wording has been tidied up, but the substance is the same.
There are two small differences. Prescient’s standard clause allowing the manager to close a fund to new investors falls away, although the regulations still allow it. And the global fund will move from paying distributions twice a year to once a year, for the period ending in March. Because the underlying global fund accumulates its returns, those distributions have been negligible anyway.
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Tax?
The switch is not a capital gains tax event. Your base cost carries over to the new units, so there is no gain or loss to declare. Before the transfer, any income accrued in the old ETFs will be paid out as a special distribution alongside the regular one.
If you would rather sell before the switch, you can, but that is a disposal for CGT purposes and you will pay brokerage.
The vote
Under section 99 of the Collective Investment Schemes Control Act, holders must approve the move. A simple majority of investors carries it, and anyone who does not respond is counted as a yes. To vote either way, instruct your broker or CSDP in writing by 17:00 on Monday, 23 November 2026. The result will be announced on 17 December 2026.
Key dates if it goes ahead
The last day to trade the old codes is Tuesday, 12 January 2027. On Wednesday, 13 January, the old ETFs are suspended and the new ones start trading on the JSE. The new units, and the distributions, land in investors’ accounts on Monday, 18 January, and the old ETFs are delisted the next day. The global fund’s move also needs exchange control approval from the Reserve Bank.
The bottom line
This is an administrative change with no meaningful impact on how your money is invested or what you pay. For most holders there is little reason to object, and no action is required.
ETF blog
At Just One Lap, we are big fans of passive investment using ETFs. In this weekly blog, we discuss ETFs on the local market and the factors you need to consider when choosing an ETF. If you have wondered how one ETF differs from another, this is where you can find out. We explain which index each ETF tracks, what type of portfolio could benefit from holding each ETF, and how the costs will affect your bottom line.
