HLG Unit Trust Unveils Global Fund Focused on Natural Resources
Kuala Lumpur, November 8 - HLG Unit Trust Bhd (HLG UT) today unveiled its latest fund, the HLG Global Resources Income Fund, increasing its portfolio of product offerings to 20 unit trust funds. The Fund will be available to the public from November 13 2006.
The new Fund was unveiled at a ceremony today by Mr. Richard Lin, Executive Director and CEO of HLG Asset Management Sdn Bhd and Mr. Teo Chang Seng, Executive Director and Acting CEO of HLG Unit Trust Bhd together with key distributors.
HLG Global Resources Income Fund is a balanced fund where its main objective is to provide regular income and seek long-term growth of capital. The Fund also aims to protect against inflation and monetary instability by investing into a diversified investment portfolio containing a mixture of fixed income securities and equity securities.
The Fund will invest in global equity securities of companies involved in the extraction, processing, transportation and distribution of natural resources of any kind in any part of the world. A portion of the Fund will also be invested into Malaysian fixed income securities to seek regular income and stability of capital.
The HLG Global Resources Income Fund is designed for investors who are seeking a regular income stream and stable investment returns. The Fund is also suitable for investors who are seeking diversification in their investment holdings through global exposure as well as potential for long-term capital appreciation from investments in the global resources sectors.
“To achieve the fund objective of regular income and medium-to-long term capital growth, the Fund would have exposure to a broad range of industries including oil, natural gas, base metals, minerals, chemicals, precious metals, papers and forestry, and agricultural goods, selected primarily on the basis of their capital growth,” said Richard Lin, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of HLG Asset Management Sdn. Bhd.
The Fund will only invest in equity securities that trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), American Stock Exchange (AMEX) or NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System). The Fund might also invest in Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), which are funds that hold baskets of securities typically tied to an index or some other pre-identified benchmark. The Fund also intends to invest into securities that may be in the form of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), which are receipts typically issued by a United States of America (U.S) bank or trust company that evidence ownership of underlying securities issued by a foreign entity.
Newgate Capital Management LLC has been appointed as the external foreign investment manager to manage the global equity portion of the HLG Global Resources Income Fund. Newgate is a privately held global investment advisor specialising in emerging markets and natural resource investing. The appointment will allow HLG Global Resources Income Fund to leverage on Newgate’s niche experience trading in emerging markets, where two thirds of the world’s natural resources lie. This, in essence, would provide insight and knowledge that is central towards natural resources investments for the Fund.
"We are confident that with our appointed fund manager Newgate’s expertise in this sector, the Fund would be able to provide investors exposure to large resource bases with potentially attractive returns,” Lin added.
Market exposure for the HLG Global Resources Income Fund would be a minimum of 50% in the foreign markets and a maximum of 50% locally. The asset allocation for the Fund would be between 40%-60% in equities and between 40%-60% in fixed income securities.
The Fund intends to make investments in all countries represented by the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) World Index. However, at times, investments may focus in a particular region and/or certain foreign countries, including emerging market countries.
The new global fund will play an important role in positioning HLG Unit Trust Bhd in its strategy to be among the major unit trust players in the industry. Currently, HLG Unit Trust Bhd already manages a diverse product range that includes a selection of Islamic Shariah-compliant unit trusts, growth funds, equity funds, balanced funds, sectoral funds as well as bond funds.
The HLG Global Resources Income Fund has a total approved fund size of 800 million units priced at RM 0.50 per unit during the initial offer period (from November 13 2006 till December 3 2006). Minimum initial investment for HLG Global Resources Income Fund is RM 1,000 while the minimum additional investment is RM 100.
HLG Global Resources Income Fund is distributed through both HLG Unit Trust Bhd’s agency force as well as selected Institutional Unit Trust Agents (IUTA) namely, Hong Leong Bank Berhad, United Overseas Bank (Malaysia) Berhad, Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia Berhad and Affin Bank Berhad.
About HLG Unit Trust Bhd
Incorporated on October 5 1994, HLG Unit Trust Bhd is an established unit trust management company, and a member of the Hong Leong Group Malaysia. Its core business is the management of unit trust funds.
Here at HLG Unit Trust Bhd, everything we do reflects our tagline “Making Opportunities Work”. Making opportunities work is central to what we do. In the world of investment, it is all about being able to spot the right opportunities and at HLG Unit Trust Bhd, we strive to make them work for our investors.
The company already manages 19 unit trust funds to date, which are distributed nationwide through multiple channels. Direct and channel distribution activities are supported by the HLG Unit Trust Bhd’s strategic nationwide sales support infrastructure. This includes our headquarters in Kuala Lumpur and six sales support offices nationwide in Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, Penang, Johor Bahru, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu.
As at October 31 2006, HLG Unit Trust Bhd has a combined total fund size of RM 1.88 billion.
About Hong Leong Group Malaysia
From its humble beginnings as a trading company in 1963, Hong Leong Group Malaysia has expanded steadily in tandem with the growth of the nation of Malaysia through entrepreneurship, investment foresight and innovation to its present size and position with core businesses rooted in key sectors. Based in Malaysia, the Group today controls 14 listed companies in various stock exchanges around the world with a total market capitalisation circa USD 11 billion and over 500 operating subsidiaries and associate companies. The Group's globally diversified core businesses are firmly rooted in the key sectors of financial services, manufacturing & distribution and property development & investment.