HLG Unit Trust Bhd Launches The HLG Global Healthcare Fund
HLG Unit Trust Bhd officially launched its first global fund, the HLG Global Healthcare Fund today. The HLG Global Healthcare Fund is a feeder fund that invests into the award-winning United Global Healthcare Fund.
During the launch ceremony, the new Fund was jointly unveiled by Mr. Raymond Choong, President of Hong Leong Credit and Mr. Richard Lin, Executive Director and CEO of HLG Asset Management Sdn Bhd together with Mr. Thio Boon Kiat, Managing Director and CIO of UOB Asset Management Ltd and Mr. Siow Chai Sheng, Managing Director of Wellington International Management Company Pte Ltd.
HLG Global Healthcare Fund invests a minimum of 95% of its NAV into the United Global Healthcare Fund, an award-winning Singapore unit trust fund which was launched in year 2000. The HLG Global Healthcare Fund is an equity growth fund that aims to achieve long-term capital growth by investing in securities issued by companies involved principally in the development, production or distribution of products, equipment and/or services related to healthcare, in any part of the world.
The HLG Global Healthcare Fund is designed for investors who are seeking a greater diversification in their investment holdings through global exposure in the healthcare sector; and long-term capital appreciation from investments in global equity markets.
“To achieve the fund objective of long-term capital growth, the Fund would have exposure to the sub-sectors of the healthcare industry such as medical products, health services, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology.” said Richard Lin, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of HLG Asset Management Sdn. Bhd.
Through HLG Global Healthcare Fund, investors would be able to invest in the multiple award-winning track record of the United Global Healthcare Fund. The latter fund, a product from UOB Asset Management Ltd, with Wellington International Management Company Pte Ltd as its investment adviser, is an award-winning fund. It was incepted in August 2000 and since then has won 8 Fund Awards; 4 awards at the Singapore S&P Investment Funds Award (2002, 2004-2006), 3 awards at The Edge-Lipper Singapore Unit Trust Funds Awards (2003-2004) and 1 award at the Singapore Investment Funds Award (2001). The most recent award won was the ‘Best Performing Sector - Healthcare Fund over 3 Years’ award at the Singapore S&P Investment Funds Award 2006.
The asset allocation of the HLG Global Healthcare Fund would be a minimum of 95% into the United Global Healthcare Fund and a maximum of 5% into liquid assets. The performance of the new Fund is benchmarked against the MSCI ACWI Healthcare USD.
Launching of new funds is one of the three pronged expansion strategy executed to increase HLG Unit Trust Bhd’s market share in the industry. To meet the growing sophistication of the market for offshore products, HLG UT is planning to roll out several additional innovative unit trust products into the market.
Earlier this year, HLG Unit Trust Bhd had launched the HLG Asia-Pacific Dividend Fund, its first regional fund. “We achieved great success with our recently-launched fund, HLG Asia-Pacific Dividend Fund,” said Lin. The HLG Asia-Pacific Dividend Fund is an equity growth and income fund that invests in securities in Asia-Pacific countries, excluding Japan, aiming at securities that generates attractive dividend yield. The fund was launched on February 28 this year, for which it had received favourable response. In fact, the Fund was fully subscribed within its initial offer period, charting sales of 500 million units. Even with the subsequent increase in its fund size by 100 million units, the Fund was yet again fully subscribed in just 2 business days. As of March 31 2006, the fund size of the HLG Asia-Pacific Dividend Fund stands at RM284 million and is fully subscribed.
The new global fund will play an important role in positioning HLG Unit Trust Bhd in its strategy to be among the largest unit trust companies in the industry. Currently, HLG Unit Trust Bhd already manages a diverse product range that includes a selection of Islamic Syariah-compliant unit trusts, growth funds, equity funds, balanced funds, sectoral funds as well as bond funds.
The HLG Global Healthcare Fund has a total approved fund size of 400 million units priced at RM 0.50 per unit during the initial offer period (from April 18 2006 till May 8 2006). Minimum initial investment for HLG Global Healthcare Fund is RM 1,000 while the minimum additional investment is RM 100.
Available immediately, HLG Global Healthcare Fund is distributed through both HLG Unit Trust Bhd’s agency force as well as Institutional Unit Trust Agents (IUTA). HLG Global Healthcare Fund is available through selected HLG Unit Trust Bhd’s IUTAs namely, Hong Leong Bank Berhad, HSBC Bank Malaysia Berhad, United Overseas Bank (Malaysia) Berhad, OCBC Bank (Malaysia) Berhad, Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia Berhad, Affin Bank Berhad and CIMB Private Banking.
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.
Today, the company manages 18 unit trust funds, 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 March 31 2006, HLG Unit Trust Bhd has a combined total fund size of RM 1.88 billion.
About UOB Asset Management Ltd
UOB Asset Management Ltd (UOBAM) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of UOB Group. Established in 1986, UOBAM has been managing collective investment schemes and discretionary funds in Singapore for 20 years and as of 28 February 2006 manages about S$23.22 billion in clients’ assets. As at 28 February 2006, UOBAM manages 36 unit trusts (with a total of 58 funds and sub-funds altogether) in Singapore, with total assets of about S$2.65 billion under management.
About Wellington Management Company, LLP
Wellington Management is a limited liability partnership whose sole business is investment management. Wellington Management manages US, international and global equity, fixed income, currency, commodities, real assets, and active asset allocation portfolios for clients in over 40 countries. As of 28 February, 2006, client assets under management totalled over US$538 billion.