Twelve local journalists last week attended a course presented by Professor Nixon Kariithi of Wits University, which was sponsored by Sanlam Investment Management (SIM).
Tega Shiimi ya Shiimi, CEO of SIM, said it was of vital importance for Namibian journalists to understand and report on financial issues.
“Financial issues and especially asset management which encompasses things like private equity investments, infrastructure investments, property asset management, domestic and international unit trusts and the like are not easy concepts to master.

It was therefore with pleasure that we asked an expert to come and educate our journalists, thereby giving them the tools to understand these issues and reporting on them accurately and professionally,” he said
“Reporting Asset Management in the Mass Media” was a training course designed for journalists interested in or already covering the broad area of personal finance. The course familiarised the journalists with technical concepts relating to this area of economics and finance, such as classical portfolio theory, portfolio management, asset pricing, hedge funds and derivatives markets.
The course also placed these technical issues within the context of daily news reporting. It endeavoured to assist journalists to improve both their understanding and ability to report issues emanating from this specialised but fast-growing area of Africa’s financial markets.
The envisaged outcomes included understanding the structure and nature of specialised financial markets; understanding the economic rationale behind the asset management; understanding basic decision-making processes involved in portfolio management, and developing sound abilities to competently report asset management issues to general media audiences.