TheStar
KUALA LUMPUR: The AmBank Group, Malaysia's fifth largest financial services group by assets, is targeting an annual average return of 13.5% to 23% for its newly launched RM200mil AmAsia Star closed-end three-year capital guaranteed investment-linked fund.
AmAsia Star is also the second in the series of AmAsia funds, the first being AmAsia Link, which was launched last September with a fund size of RM100mil.
The minimum investment for AmAsia Star is RM5,000, the minimum additional investment RM5,000, while the maximum investment is RM1.5mil. The offer period is 45 days from the date of launch or upon full subscription.
AmAssurance Bhd general manager (investments) Philomena Jan said the target annual return was based on back testing of the four underlying asset classes the fund invests in - equities, property, industrial metals and precious metals.
She said back testing done on three-year periods since 2001 showed that the equities and commodities traded on the four Asian indices on which the fund was tracking - DAXglobal Asia Financial Service Index, Morgan Stanley Asia Property, S&P GSCI Industrial Metals and S&P GSCI Precious Metals - had an average return of 40.6% to 67%.
“We're confident in the secular bull run of the underlying asset classes and we've a risk-management system incorporated into the fund where the best three performing indices will be accorded weightage every six months in order to maximise returns,” Jan told reporters after the launch of AmAsia Star yesterday.
She said the AmAsia Link's performance was steady despite the volatile global equity markets. The group's target average annual return for the three-year capital guaranteed fund is 8%.
Meanwhile, AmAssurance general manager (corporate and bancassurance sales) Firozdin Abdul Wahab said the AmPreferred Medicare, a medical insurance policy, and an investment-linked education product, would be launched in June.
“We're also launching a critical illness product in July and the third series of the AmAsia funds some time in November,” he said.
AmBank chairman Tan Sri Azman Hashim, who witnessed the launch, said the group would launch up to seven new insurance products this year, as financial planning was now core to the group's bancassurance activities.
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