Fund to invest in utilities sector

TA Investment scores a first with feeder fund

KUALA LUMPUR: TA Investment Management Bhd yesterday launched the TA ABN Amro Utilities Fund (TAUF), Malaysia's first unit trust fund that will invest globally in the utility sector.

Chief executive officer Simon Chow said TAUF would be feeding into ABN Amro Funds - Utilities Fund A, which had been generating an average annual return of 20.5% since it was launched in July 2004.

"We expect to sell RM70mil of the new fund during the initial offer period (Aug 15 to Sept 4)," he told reporters after the launch.

The approved fund size is RM100mil, or 200 million 50 sen units. The minimum initial investment is RM1,000.

Investors may buy units in the fund from OCBC Bank and ABN Amro Bank branches throughout Malaysia, or directly from TA Investment and its authorised agents.

"TAUF is a feeder fund, of which 95% of the investment would go to ABN Amro Funds, while the balance would be used for regulatory purposes," Chow said.

ABN Amro Funds has been investing in global utility equities and was the largest utilities sector fund registered in Luxembourg, with a net asset value of 633 million euros at July 29.

TAUF will invest in electricity, gas, water, independent power producers and energy traders, as well as in multi-utilities. Most of the funds will go to Europe and the US market.

Chow said despite the current market sentiment, utility companies were still achieving good regular earnings, as consumption did not depend on economic conditions, being the "very basic economic building blocks for all nations."

He said although utilities traditionally had been seen as a stable and defensive sector, recent global developments in fuel prices, environmental issues and increasing demand for utilities had made it more attractive to investors.

Chief investment officer Choo Swee Kee said that given the recent market sentiment, it was the "most appropriate'' time to launch the new fund, which was a long-term investment with consistent returns.

URL: http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?f...50&sec=business

kingkong81, there's a dedicated thread for PIABF in this section.

Put the agent name as yourself has no problem but once you become a qualified agent, you have annual quota to meet.

The same article that kingkong81 posted appers in The Star Online:

http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?f...47&sec=business

Guess they're trying to calm the unit trustholders so that the unitholders have faith on them.

For the same period of time, my favourite fund also drops a lot!

[attachmentid=279571]

-10.56%

Which cash fund will you recommend? Is there any switching fee of RM 25?

This post has been edited by David83: Aug 16 2007, 10:11 PM

PMMF is using KLIBOR as benchmark while Public Islamic Money Market Fund is using 3-month IIMM as benchmark.

Since my funds are in the Public Series, only these two cash funds are available for me to switch to if I wanted to.

This post has been edited by David83: Aug 16 2007, 10:16 PM

So MMF is almost equivalent to FD? Since switching to MMF doesn't involve any service charge, it's better to do so. Thanks ejleemy for doing all the deep explaination.

I still missed those time when switching from Equity fund -> bond fund, cost = RM 0.

Yesterday most of the off-shore funds dropped a lot:

[attachmentid=279799]

I need to wait till this month salary to be in before I could topup more.

Wow ... that's a brave and bold move judging from the current atmosphere. I think that I'll cool down myself first for few days.

Which equity fund you switched into?

Seems like got many people have high interests on PRSF.

Some news on US economy:

Fed cuts discount rate, signals growth concern
http://uk.us.biz.yahoo.com/rb/070817/usa_fed_1.html?.v=2

Fed action signals won't neglect global role
http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/17082007/325/fed-a...lobal-role.html

This post has been edited by David83: Aug 18 2007, 09:13 PM

So it's some combinational actions; injecting money and decrease increase rate.

Maybe they don't intend to reduce the interest rate if previous cash injection could help to boost the market.

Tomorrow will be the last day to perform AI (topup) at discounted service charge of 5.45% to selected PM funds in conjunction with the Failaka award.

Still hesitating on topping up on PFEPRF.

Buy what? New fund application for PFEPRF?

My agent said that they only create new accounts on Tuesdays.

Why you wait till now? If you submit SI tomorrow together with your new applcation, I don't think that you'll be getting disounted service charge of 5.45% on your future SI.