Retail Legal Counsel at Ninety One

About the team:

The Ninety One legal team is a global team within Ninety One, with lawyers in South Africa, the UK and the USA.  This particular role is a senior level role which will be based in Cape Town but will have a global remit and will support Ninety One’s global derivative initiatives.

All the lawyers play key roles as valued business advisers in managing regulatory and legal risk while facilitating Ninety One’s global commercial activities.

This role is an opportunity to be a retail in-house lawyer in an experienced legal team within the investment management industry.  The role is heavily focused on drafting, negotiating and processing contracts (particularly client-facing contracts) as well as answering queries received from internal sales teams as well as external financial advisors. 

It will also involve working on product development, distribution and marketing initiatives in relation to Ninety One’s retail products (such as collective investment schemes, LISP products and retail savings and retirements products).It also offers an ability to develop a wide variety of legal skills through working with experienced lawyers that have deep specialist knowledge in a variety of areas.

The role will also provide some exposure to other areas of Ninety One’s business as a result of the fact that the legal team provides support to Ninety One’s entire business. The candidate should have a good legal background, with working knowledge and experience in drafting and negotiating contracts, as well as working knowledge of collective investment schemes, LISPs and retail savings and retirement products in the financial services industry.  Support and training will be provided by experienced lawyers within the team.

In this role you will:

• Draft, negotiate and coordinate input from the business in respect of retail client-facing legal documentation (most of which is template based) such as:
  • Investment platform-related documentation (e.g. broker agreements, SLAs, model portfolio agreements, terms documents)
  • Collective investment scheme-related documentation (e.g. SLA’s, terms documents)
• Provide legal input on products, transaction forms and terms documents
• Liaise with regulators & industry representative bodies as required
• Analyse the impact of new / amended legislation that will affect the retail business and ensuring that business is prepared for same
• Assist with retail product-related litigious work
• Be responsible for resolution of client complaints and queries, including drafting of legal responses
• Keep template agreements up to date
• Keep track of the status and progress of client-facing documentation
• Answer and track legal retail queries received from internal sales teams as well as external financial advisors, relating to products and matters such as:
  • Collective investment schemes
  • Retirement products e.g. retirement annuities, preservation funds, living annuities
  • Savings products
• Review and negotiate peripheral legal documentation for running an asset management business such as NDAs, IT contracts, procurement contracts, workplace/facilities contracts, events contracts, etc
• Deal with questions from the business and clients in relation to contracts
• Interact regularly with client-facing (sales) teams
• Interpret and apply legislation and regulation applicable to Ninety One’s retail products
• Provide general legal and regulatory advice on contracts and issues associated with running an investment management business.

You should consider applying if you have:

• LLB or related tertiary qualification is required.
• Post-graduate diploma in Financial Planning beneficial.
• Ideally suited to qualified lawyer with around 5 years relevant post qualification experience in the financial services industry.
• Solid legal background, with working knowledge and experience in drafting and negotiating contracts is a requirement.
• Working knowledge of the asset management industry and savings and retirement fund products.
• Good working knowledge of relevant financial services legislation is essential (Pension Funds Act, Income Tax Act, Long Term Insurance Act, Insurance Act, Financial Intelligence Centre Act, Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, Collective Investment Schemes Control Act, Divorce Act, Estate Duty Act, Administration of Estates Act).
• Exposure to legal duties and functions is essential.

Some of the attributes we look for in a person are:

• The ability to build and maintain meaningful relationships
• The ability to ‘approach and own’ and continuously look for opportunities to develop
• Ambition, balanced with decency and humanity
• Ability to analyse, interpret and assimilate information