Put it simply, dividend is just "left hand go right hand"; there is ZERO IMPACT to the investor's value of holdings.

- Fund XYZ has 100,000 units issued, initially issued at RM1.00
- Current NAV price is RM1.02
- XYZ declares a "10% dividend" of 10 sen a unit
- After the dividend, the NAV will go down to RM0.92

For sake of illustration, we assume that dividends are paid out in cash (not reinvested), and no tax on the distribution.

Ali says: "Eh XYZ very good, gave me 10% returns..."
Answer:
WRONG! The 10% is expressed by reference to the Initial Offer Price of RM1.00 (RM1.00 x 10% = 10 sen). It does not mean that the fund made a profit of 10% for investors. In this scenario, the fund actually only made a return of 2% (RM1.00 + 2% = RM1.02) during the period.

Simply said, just imagine you pass me RM100 to invest in a trolley cart. 1 year later the trolley cart become worth RM92, and I collected rental income of RM10 on your behalf. The value of your investment is now RM102. I then decide to return 10% i.e. RM10 to you. So now u have a RM92 trolley cart and RM10 in cash on hand. The "dividend" that I decided to give you has ZERO IMPACT on the net worth of your investment, which remain at RM102.

Here's another variation to the scenario above; your RM100 investment could actually have incurred a loss, and I could still decide to "reward" you with a 10% "dividend". Let's say a wheel on your trolley was damaged, now your trolley is only worth RM60. The value of your investment is now RM60 + RM10 (rental income received in cash) = RM70. But I could still proudly say that I'm declaring a 10% "dividend" to reward you

Key Lesson Point
A unit trust fund can declare dividend even when it has actually made its investors@unitholders poorer. By regulation, a unti trust fund can only declare dividend out of its REALISED INCOMES (interest income, dividend income, net proceed from sale of investments, rental income etc). Gains from market price fluctuations are not realised, i.e. they're "paper gain/(loss)". So, you could be having
(a) Fund A got realised incomes from which to declare dividends, even though during the same period it has huge paper losses.
(b) Fund B made lots of paper gains from market price movements, but it cannot/decided not to declare dividend to unitholders because of insufficient realised incomes. Bear in mind, some funds actually have a "no dividend" policy, and they are great performers.