Malaysia’s central bank has directed a sweeping overhaul in the board of directors of the country’s largest banking group Maybank, in an unprecedented government censure on a board of a financial institution.

The little-publicised revamp followed government displeasure at the controversial acquisition of an Indonesian lender by Malayan Banking (Maybank) last year, officials say.

Bank Internasional Indonesia (BII) was bought from a consortium led by Singapore’s Temasek Holdings at a price that was deemed too high.

...

Maybank’s main shareholders are national equity fund Permodalan Nasional and pension fund Employees Provident Fund.

Source: MalaysianInsider.com: KL raps Maybank board, orders changes

This question has been asked many many time.

Those fixed price fund is as similar as capital protected.

AS1M Quota for Indian

"KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 9 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak today became the first prime minister to make an official visit to Batu Caves since his father Tun Abdul Razak did in 1970. Though their visits to the site best known for its Hindu cave temples and the spectacular Thaipusam festival were separated by nearly forty years, the circumstances that surrounded their visits are in some ways, remarkably similar.

He also announced a few other financial allocations, such as for the Divine Life Society Orphanage and RM15 million in micro credit to help Indian entrepreneurs.

He also pointed out that in the recent Amanah Saham 1Malaysia unit trust scheme by Permodalan Nasional Berhad, the Indian quota was 15 per cent despite making up only 8 per cent of the total population."

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.p...indian-malaysia

This post has been edited by cheahcw2003: Aug 11 2009, 02:53 PM

yeah. same here!

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Added on August 11, 2009, 5:14 pmyes. not much ppl here as well.

This post has been edited by ayumiya: Aug 11 2009, 05:14 PM

Actually I don't think AS1M is capital guaranteed (stated pretty clearly in the terms) unlike those 3 stated above, so it's slightly riskier.

Still I believe ASN1,2,3 have been doing pretty ok so far, despite being floating & not capital guaranteed.

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Added on August 11, 2009, 5:36 pmThe offer period is 1 month during which you don't need to pay the 1%, after that you need to pay, providing the fund is still available.

This post has been edited by cic.lemur: Aug 11 2009, 05:36 PM

But then it is fixed price. I'm confused again...

From my understanding, fixed price products is no matter how the market performs, the price will be always at rm1, u buy at rm1 when u redeem it is always sell at rm1, on top of that u get your dividen on yearly basis

capital guaranted means when u hold the fund till it matured then u will at least get the money invested + possible gain. If u dont hold till maturity, u may get less or more than what u have invested.

This issue has been discuss again and again, some people just lazy to go thru the previous post on the explaination and keep on asking the same questions, and try to mislead others. SO before posting a question, pls go thru the postings b4.

Today went to invest in AS1M... don't know what to say, there are long queue for doing the AS1M transaction! after took the number, waited almost 1 hour ++ then only can do the transaction. I don't understand, people say AS1M not good, People don't want to invest etc. but in this Maybank branch lot people waiting to buy????? Don't know what to say lar........
hmm

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Added on August 11, 2009, 11:30 pm1.6B UNITS OF AS1M TAKEN UP ALREADY

PUTRAJAYA, Aug 11 — Pemodalan Nasional Bhd’s (PNB) Amanah Saham 1 Malaysia (AS 1Malaysia) has sold 1.67 billion units, its president/chief executive officer, Tan Sri Hamad Kama Piah Che Othman, said today.

He said the response to the fund was encouraging with subscription on the first day of sales exceeded that sold by other fixed funds like ASW 2020 and ASM.

“If you compare with ASM and ASW 2020, this product is better. On the first day, it sold 1.4 billion units.

“Compared with ASM and ASW 2020, the response was encouraging,” he told reporters after the finals of Investment Quiz Contest PNB 2009 (Secondary Schools) and PNB’s Smart Investment Club Debate here today.

AS 1Malaysia, with approved fund size of RM10 billion, is offered to Malaysians aged 18 and above at RM1 each.

The public can invest in at least 100 units.

For those aged under 55 they can buy a maximum of 50,000 units and 100,000 units for those aged 55 and above.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak launched the fund on July 31, 2009.

Hamad Kama Piah said for the Chinese community its quota was 50 percent sold.

“This is unlike other unit trusts sold by PNB where the quota for the Chinese community would be taken up within two days of the launch,” he said.

He said the reason could be PNB benchmarked the fund’s returns against the average five-year Malaysian Government Securities yield, which currently has a trading yield of 3.73 per cent.

For ASW 2020 and ASM, he said, PNB used the three-month Kuala Lumpur Inter-Bank Offered Rate.

“When they understand the situation, I hope they will continue to invest and not wait until the last minute,” he said. — Bernama

This post has been edited by davinz18: Aug 11 2009, 11:30 PM

Neither is ASB, ASW or ASM is capital guaranteed. They are fixed price as well at Rm1.00.

Fixed price is almost identical to capital guarantee, but capital guarantee is not the word to be used, because nobody guarantee the capital of the fund, except gov/PNB tries as hard as possible for it to remain at fixed price at Rm1.00.

Fixed price mechanism can collapse or under serious threat as well under some special circumstance which very unlikely to happen, so it never a capital guarantee.

So how can AS1M be riskier if they are same at fixed price? I really don't get it.

If said potential return from this fund might be lower due to no track record, or poor timing of the fund, may be at least understandable and reasonable.

But to say it is riskier, we need to have reason and facts of it.

Think you refer to previous page, someone just posted quite a good article for that.

Last Friday closing sold rm1.4Bil unit, Last 2 days Monday & Tuesday sold another 200mil which is rm1.6bil till yesterday closing, not bad.

The chairman said 50% Chinese quota taken up, meaning 50% of RM3.0bil, i.e. RM1.5bil chinese quota being sold. So of the RM1.6bil unit that sold up to date RM1.5bil was taken by chinese, only RM0.1Bil unit is taken by other races????? despite 15% of total fund is allocated for Indians (RM1.5Bil), and 50% for bumiputera (RM5bil), i wonder why very weak response from other races??

This post has been edited by lonelyplanet92: Aug 12 2009, 09:41 AM

Very good question. Why such a low take up??
Even on the Chinese quota, it says normally, the Chinese quota taken up in the 1st 2 days, but this time, so many days and still only 50%? Why???????
In spite all the advertisement and marketing that went into this AS1M, still the take up is so low. Compared to the others, not much marketing efforts but super fast take up rate.

SOmebody put this comment in themalaysiainsider website, good analysis of AS1M, can read and think:-

"At this time of market - KLSE@1180 pts. you ask us to invest in shares market (via AS1M). it must be joking.

Amanah Saham 1 Malaysia is only putting money in share market to push all GLC companies, as can be seen when ASM/ASW2020 launch its additional units in April, The market index shoot from 8xx points to current 1180 points. all GLC companies jump. especially CIMB....

We need developments and jobs prospect, not gambling in share market. If our economy is not growing due to the curent financial crisis, then the share market should not used to decorate that our economy is improving and KLSE is up."

My 2 cents worth....

Riskier probably in terms of potential returns from the investments.
Say I'm selling something... would it not be right for me to market it in the best possible light. So when PNB benchmark AS1M against MGS (currently at... what 3.73%) at this point in time, then how much confidence would you expect, when the seller thinks that is the best they can provide. Granted, that is just a benchmark and it could be much higher, but for seller to state that it's so low from the very beginning.... hmmmmmmm..... I don't know. Don't get me wrong.. I invested in AS1M too... but I think I understand some of the fears some out there feels.

This is not called riskier, this is more about its potential return rate.

Risk - you lose your initial capital.

It is misleading to say AS1M is riskier than ASB,ASM,ASW. It gives wrong impression to other.
Also, ASB, ASM, ASW, even AS1M, there is no guarantee payout on each year, although track record is good for ASB, ASM and ASW, but this is no guarantee future will be the same as well.

The more appropriate is to say they are carrying the same risk. But opportunity cost and potential return could be different.

Agree.

But like I say.. riskier maybe not in losing monies but... riskier in terms of earning less.

Anyway some if not most of the investors in ASx are people who are not so interested in the finer points. What they see is the general feel of the particular ASx offered, and this one AS1M although highly advertised by PNB is not really getting the push in sales on the streets. So I guess the casual Joes on the street feel uneasy.

It's not your fault, but you have no idea how much I hate this statement & the sentiment behind it.

It's the kind of thinking that leads people to ignore downside risk & gamble on ever riskier items & schemes that they don't understand. It's the kind of thinking that rip-off artists prey upon, because they know that the fear now is not losing money, it's now not making enough money. In a larger scale, it's the kind of thinking that makes people assume that a 20% p/a return is a requirement, that leads them to believe in stupidity like the eternal bull market.

Never forget downside risk, never invest more than you're prepared to lose and never, never invest in something you don't understand and that cannot be explained in a 2-3 simple sentences.

Rant over. Sorry.

This post has been edited by snowcrash: Aug 12 2009, 02:08 PM

Correct me if I'm wrong.. but I think maybe you've deviated from the topic slightly.

Granted I agree with what you say but putting it back into the context of ASx, if one could, given the choice, one would choose ASN, ASB etc.. etc.. with confirmed track records right. And those that have no other choice would choose either ASM, AS2020 or AS1M (or all of them). And given that ASM, AS2020 and AS1M are all fixed priced, then comparatively wouldn't AS1M on paper at this point in time looks less attractive, hence a riskier (ok not the correct word to use but the word in question never the less) option. After all nothing is for certain right, because lets face it, these kind of investment carries a certain amount of risk, thus AS1M is seemed by some to be 'riskier' in comparison.

Well that's my simple take on it anyway.

Read and try to understand the prospectus. Thats the basic rules before placing any investment to further understanding.

Based on the statistic given by PNB chairman, 1.5bil of 1.6bil sold unit are subsribed by chinese, means 94% of AS1M fund are held by chinese as at to date?????