KUALA LUMPUR: Eastspring Investments Bhd (Eastspring Malaysia), a fund management company, believes the fund size under its management will grow by double-digit percentage to over RM22 billion this year, backed by strong demand for its fixed-income products.
“Fixed-income funds have been registering a lot of interests. For example, one of our fixed-income fund has grown by about 30 per cent during the last few quarters,” said Lynn Cheah Lee Ling, chief executive officer of Eastspring, in a Business Times interview recently.
“With the unsettled issues in Europe, we expect the trend to continue over the near-term.”
As at end of last year, Eastspring Malaysia managed some RM20 billion worth of funds, about 10 per cent growth from RM18 billion in 2010.
Besides banking on the demand for fixed-income products, Eastspring Malaysia, formerly known as Prudential Fund Management Bhd, will rely on its rebranding exercise to attract more third party clients.
Currently, about 82 per cent of Eastspring Malaysia’s total assets under management are sourced from Prudential’s life fund, while 16 per cent of the total funds are sourced from third party retail and institutional clients. The balance two per cent are private and government linked mandates.
The contribution from third party clients is somewhat low, if compared against Eastspring Investments’ group portfolio – where about half of its total assets are sourced from third party clients.
“There will be a strong focus on growing the contribution from third party clients moving forward. I believe the rebranding from Prudential Fund Management to Eastspring Investments will play a big role in growing the third party client base.”
Cheah said in the past, under the previous name, there was some confusion in the market in terms of what the company does.
“There were occasions where people mistook us as an insurance company. With the new brand, they would be able to better differentiate the asset management business and products from Prudential group’s other businesses and products.”
The new brand will give the asset management business and products a distinctive identity that will make it easier to market and communicate to retail investors, she added.
Eastspring Malaysia was established in 2000 as Prudential Fund Management.
It offers a wide range of unit trust funds and manages customised portfolio mandates for corporate, institutions and others.
Today, it has more than 100 employees, responsible for 27 retail funds and six wholesale funds.
“We are looking at launching country-specific equity funds by the end of this year,” she said.
Source by: Business Times
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