RHBIIAM eyes RM100m sales for new fund in 6 months

Kuala Lumpur: RHB Islamic Asset Management Bhd (RHBIIAM) aims to raise RM100 million for its newly launched RHB Islamic Global Developed Markets Fund (Islamic GDFM) in six months.Managing Director/Regional Head of Group Asset Management Eliza Ong Yin Suen said RHB Bank will be the exclusive distributor during the six-month period, and moving forward RHBIIAM is looking to open the distributorship to others.

Speaking at a press conference after the launch of the fund, she said RHBIIAM is also targeting to increase the fund to between RM500 million and RM1 billion in three to five years' time.

The fund is Malaysia's first Islamic retail fund to target the global developed market, and is introduced at a time when the global economy is gaining momentum and steadily advancing, she said.

It aims to provide investors with long-term capital growth and is expected to provide annual returns of between nine per cent and 11 per cent, she said.

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Ong said the fund will be invested in the US, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Japan and Australia, all high-income countries open to foreign ownership and offering relative ease of capital movement.

The global Islamic fund management industry currently stands at US$60 billion (US$=RM3.65), and is forecast to grow by 208 per cent to US$185 billion by 2019 due to strong demand for Islamic funds, she said.

In Malaysia it is evident that investors are now seeking more Shariah-compliant funds, having registered total assets under management (AUM) worth RM111 billion in 2014 from RM98 billion in 2013, she said.

The RHB Group's AUM currently stands at RM51 billion including RM5 billion in Shariah-compliant assets, and the group aims to grow the assets to RM58 billion by year-end, she said.

RHBIIAM has appointed Nomura Islamic Asset Management Sdn Bhd as its External Investment Manager for Islamic GDFM. It is a unit of Nomura Asset Management, a leading investment management firm in Japan with US$309 billion in AUM globally.

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Seventy per cent to 98 per cent of the fund will be invested in Shariah-compliant equities of companies listed on stock exchanges of developed markets and two per cent to 30 per cent in liquid assets including Islamic money markets and placement of cash.

Nomura Malaysia Managing Director and Country Head Nor Rejina Abdul Rahim said the fund will be structured to capture the key global trends of consumption and lifestyle, healthcare, smart gadgets and robotic revolution that are expected to benefit from the recovery in developed markets. – Bernama

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