HwangDBS Investment Management to Manage RM7b

The Edge Financial Daily - 28 March 2008

Kuala Lumpur - HwangDBS Investment Management Bhd plans to boost its assets under management by 14.8% to RM7 billion this year as the group expands its unit trust portfolio to 32 funds amid a general decline in global equities markets. Executive director and chief executive Teng Chee Wai said HwangDBS Investment, already with 26 funds in its stable, planned to launch up to six unit trust funds this year, capitalising on potential upsides from oversold stocks including those of financial institutions.

“The caveat depends on the market,” Teng said yesterday at the launch of HwangDBS Asia Aspire Capital Protected Fund, its maiden fund this year. “The problem starts off in the US, but emerging markets had a bigger collapse in the last six months,” Teng added. Assets managed by HwangDBS Investment hit RM6.1 billion as at last month. According to the Lippper FundMarkets Insight Report which tracks 497 unit trust funds sold in Malaysia, the value of the investment schemes had dipped by an average of 0.5% in February 2008 from a month earlier, led by a poorer showing by equity funds. HwangDBS Global Commodity Fund was February’s top peformer with a monthly gain of 11.58% followed by the AmPrecious Metals Fund with a 9.67% growth.

Meanwhile, the newly launched HwangDBS Asia Aspire Capital Protected Fund is a closed-ended fixed-income fund of 300 million units at RM1 a piece and maturing in 30 months. It will park at least 90% of investors’ money in zero-coupon negotiable instruments of deposits, which are essentially fixed-income instruments bought at a discount to their face value. A minimum of 3.5% will be channelled to over-the-counter (OTC) options linked to a basket of shares of up to 10 global multi-sectoral companies, besides one-month Australian government bonds. The OTC transactions, which bypass stock exchanges, are provided in collaboration with The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).  

The unit trust fund, which targets annual returns of up to 8%, aims to capitalise on the growth of international firms deemed beneficiaries of expanding Asian economies. Teng said the fund planned to buy shares in firms like Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp and China’s Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China Ltd and US-based computer maker Apple Inc. Also present at the launch were Hwang-DBS (Malaysia) Bhd director Alex Hwang and RBS senior director Garry Frenklah.