TEN NEW FUNDS LAUNCHED IN JANUARY 2010

NEW LAUNCHES – Ten new funds were launched in January

this year compared with three funds during the same month of
2009. This, with a total approved fund size of 4.1B units,
was also the largest number of funds introduced since
August 2008. The fund size ranges between RM50M and RM375M,
comprising largely of equity category with exposure on the foreign markets.


• As at end-January 2010, there were 39 UTMCs managing 601
funds.
• Out of the total funds, 164 or 27.3% were Shariah compliant
with a combined NAV of 14.0% of the industry’s net asset
value, while the conventional funds numbered 437 funds or
72.7% with a market share of 86.0% of the total industry.
• The unit trust industy’s NAV rose 2.2% m-o-m to RM204.4B in
January, experiencing 20.4% of the total market capitalisation
of Bursa Malaysia. This is significantly below the rates of over
40% seen in more mature markets.
• UNITS IN CIRCULATION (UIC) – The industry’s UIC continued
to expand further in January by 2.5% m-o-m or 7.1B units to
290.245B units. This was the fastest monthly rate of
increase for the industry since July 2009 when it grew
by 2.7%.
• The inflows in January were largely of equity Malaysia
category with a total of 5.8B units. More than 50% was
contributed by the reinvestment in Amanah Saham Bumiputera
fund, following the recent declaration of an income distribution
of RM4.95B for the financial year ended December 2009 to 6.78M
unit holders.
• However, the equity funds namely equity by sector category had
reported a slight inflow of 42.7M units, while equity offshore
funds incurred a net redemption of 1.0B units. Consequently,
the units in circulation for the equity category in January increased
by 4.9B units compared with 4.9B units in December 2009.

• The withdrawals in equity offshore category were largely of
funds investing in China and Asia Pacific equity markets following
huge market pullbacks during the month.
• The industry also saw the money market and bond
categories gaining in January by 1.9B units and 0.4B units
respectively. Other categories, namely target maturity,
protected, guaranteed as well as mixed asset categories incurred
slight redemptions totalling 0.6B units.
• Compared with the same period of last year, the
industry’s UIC grew 18.6%, or 44.5B units to 290.2B units
as at end-January 2010.
• Equity funds contributed 36.5B units of the total increase, followed
by 8.0B units from money market category and 2.0B from the
bond category. The mixed asset, target maturity, commodity
and others classification saw a net increase of 1.7B units.
• The increased industry’s UIC has helped raise the overall
industry’s subscription rate to 49.16% in January this year from
48.23% charted in the same period of last year.
• Meanwhile, investment per account rose by 9.2% y-o-y
to 20,434 units per account in January 2010 from 18,719
units per account charted a year ago.

Iskandar Zulkarnain Abdul Wahid,
http://growrichconsultants.blogspot.com