1. Earn the trust and confidence of our clients
Our clients come first; always. Not only is it the right thing to do but it is best for our clients and best
for us in the long term. If we do what is best for clients, we will earn their trust, and if we excel at what
we do, their confidence. If we earn our clients’ trust and confidence, our services will be sought out
rather than need to be sold, allowing us to provide better value for money. If we act accordingly and
create client awareness, they will have a more rewarding experience with us and entrust us with their
savings and investments. If we don’t, they won’t and the firm will die, as it should.
2. Excel in all that we do
To excel is the best way for us to earn our clients’ trust and confidence. It is also inherently gratifying.
While not always succeeding, we continually strive for excellence in servicing our clients effectively
and efficiently. Producing an excellent investment track record is critical, but not nearly enough.
Clients’ trust and confidence is engendered by the totality of their experience with us including how
we communicate and conduct ourselves, even how we answer the phone. If we demonstrate excellence
in such areas, clients can more easily generate and sustain the confidence to invest with us, particularly
through the trough of our investment performance cycle when they have the most to gain.
3. Foster a purposeful and fulfilling work environment
We seek to provide a working environment that appeals to those who excel. Most people who excel
have a sense of purpose, take initiative and pursue excellence with a passion. They seek responsibility,
authority and accountability for their actions. They thrive in an environment that offers stimulation,
innovation, challenge, hard work, the ability to earn opportunity and reward commensurate with
performance, as well as the satisfaction that comes from belonging to a firm that demands and achieves
excellence. Our work environment causes most of those who excel and share our values to stay and
most of those who leave to be happy they joined in the first place.
4. Recruit and reward based on value creation for clients
We strive to recruit and reward based on both past and demonstrable future potential value creation
for clients. We hire people who have exceptional but often unproven potential. We offer them
extraordinary opportunity and reward them commensurately with their performance. Value is created
for clients in many ways. Every member of the firm is aware of how they create value for clients and
each member’s performance drives their reward, including by affording them authority and responsibility
that plays to their strengths. Ideas are judged based on merit and merit alone irrespective of seniority
or tenure. Favouritism and politics should not be tolerated.
5. Take a long-term perspective
Always think long term. Do what is in the best long-term interests of clients, even when in conflict with
short- or medium-term expedience, growth or profitability. Invest to produce the best long-term results
and offer products and services that are best for clients, even if in conflict with what they currently
desire. Carefully considered decisions made with a long-term perspective are more enduring, reducing
time spent fixing past mistakes and freeing us to make better decisions in future.
6. Act responsibly
Each of us has responsibilities to our clients, the firm, our colleagues and ourselves, and the firm has
responsibilities to its people and the societies in which it operates. We are mindful of the responsibilities
we have as individuals and on behalf of the firm and how they are changing. We are all ambassadors of
Orbis and we must conduct ourselves accordingly. We act in fulfilment of our responsibilities, consistent
with our Core Values and the priorities set out therein. We are each individually responsible for holding
each other and the firm accountable.