ARCH is an independent company whose owners are all actuarially trained
Our advice and our fees are unrelated, thus ensuring objectivity and avoiding conflicts of interest.
History
ARCH was founded by Chanan Weiss in 1998 with a view to providing personalised and independent actuarial valuation and consulting services. His experience in the areas of retirement fund consulting, damages (third party) claims and employee benefit valuations set the foundation for the ongoing development of actuarial models, reports and consulting that continue as the backbone of ARCH’s service suite.
In 2003 Chanan was joined by current partners Nilen Kambaran and Riyadh Omardien, also coming from insurance and independent actuarial consulting backgrounds.
ARCH is a 51% Black-owned independent firm. All of the owner-directors are actuaries or actuarial graduates and all are involved in the day-to-day business.
Key people
CHANAN WEISS BSC FASSA
FELLOW ACTUARY AND VALUATOR
Chanan established ARCH in 1998 and continues to serve as its Managing Director. Prior to that he was Group Risk and Retirement Funds Manager at Norwich Life and then Consulting Actuary at Ginsburg Malan and Carsons (Actuaries and Consultants). After graduating from UCT in 1987, and spending a year travelling across Africa in the early 1990s, he passed his final actuarial exam in 1996, qualifying as a Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries and a Fellow of the Actuarial Society of South Africa (ASSA).
Chanan is an FSCA-approved Valuator of Pension Funds and a Surplus Tribunal Member. He has served as ASSA’s Principal Examiner for the specialist pension fund exam. At ARCH he is the Appointed Actuary / Valuator to a portfolio of defined benefit and defined contribution retirement funds, as well as being the signing actuary for ARCH’s IAS 19 and GRAP 25 employee benefit valuations.
Chanan is married, has two daughters, lives in Cape Town and enjoys travelling, cycling, mountaineering and photography.
NILEN KAMBARAN BSC(HONS) AMASSA
ACTUARY
Nilen is an actuary with 19 years of employee benefits experience. He worked at Norwich Life, Fifth Quadrant (Actuaries & Consultants) and PSI Actuarial Solutions, which he co-founded, before joining ARCH in 2003.
Nilen has experience in pension fund and employee benefit valuations. He fulfils supervisory and client interaction roles in the Compensation, Health and Analytics arms of ARCH.
Nilen and his partner have a son. Nilen resides in Cape Town and enjoys playing squash, outdoor activities and travel.
RIYADH OMARDIEN BBUSSC (ACTUARIAL)
ACTUARIAL CONSULTANT
Riyadh joined ARCH in 2003, after working at Southern Life and PSI Actuarial Solutions. At ARCH he serves as Operational Manager and focuses on growing and managing a broad portfolio of clients who require third party actuarial calculations. These relate predominantly to losses of earnings arising from personal injury, and to losses of support arising from the death of a breadwinner. More broadly, Riyadh gets involved in any matter where lump sum compensation is to be granted in respect of projected money flows that are typically subject to escalation, and to various likelihoods or probabilities.
Riyadh has been involved in more than 17,000 individual third party matters, predominantly involving the Road Accident Fund (RAF).
Riyadh is married, has three (young-ish) sons, lives in Cape Town and enjoys surfing, travel and general outdoor recreation.
Core values
We strive to provide a personalised service of excellent quality.
ARCH has brought together varied talents from diverse backgrounds, giving us a strong foundation with which to pursue our goal. This is built on the key principles of:
- Developing and maintaining close client relationships
- Keeping abreast of professional and best practice guidelines
- Maintaining independence to eliminate conflicts of interest
- Innovation and flexibility ensuring the development of efficient models and templates, keeping costs to a minimum
Credentials
Independent. Actuarially owned and managed. 51% Black-owned.
Two-thirds of our directors are Historically Disadvantaged Individuals and half of our full-time staff complement are HDI.
Inexpensive but innovative. Flexible but focussed. Personalised but prompt.
We’d like to think that our client-relationship track record speaks for itself. ARCH is proud of the following achievements:
- We have assisted over one hundred retirement funds with statutory valuations, conversions, regulatory requirements, independent consulting, surplus apportionments and IAS 19 reports
- We have serviced over half the country’s cities and municipalities with liability calculation reports for their annual financial statements
- We have valued and reported on over one thousand long-term employee benefit liabilities (in accordance with the relevant required financial reporting standards)
- We have quantified losses in over 17,000 third party matters for the legal industry and the Road Accident Fund
- We have consulted to foreign clients in Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and the United Kingdom
- We have retained most of our clients since they commenced with us – some for as long as 20 years