IFS Capital Management Limited, one of the fastest-growing investment companies in Ghana, announced remarkable growth for its open-ended unit trusts at an Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Tuesday in Accra.
Manfred K. Bressey, General Manager of IFS Capital, who spoke to journalists prior to the conference, said the company’s Mywealth Unit Trust Fund grew in assets by 27.66 percent.
“The fund’s assets were invested mainly in short-term securities and listed equities. The fund returned a positive and impressive yield of 25.43 percent over the 2015 return of 14.69 percent. This was achieved notwithstanding the unimpressive performance of the Ghana Stock Exchange over the period.”
Net income from operations also increased from GH¢153,416 in 2015 to GH¢227,937 at end of 2016.
The fund structure was mainly dominated by money market investments, totaling over 80 percent of the entire portfolio followed by equities of 8.9 percent.
Its Richie Rich Unit Trust, for the period under review, recorded a robust yield of 26.05 percent.
The fund therefore outperformed both the 91-day and 182-day Treasury bills, which were at 16.43 percent and 17.63 percent respectively by end of year.
Net investment income for the fund grew significantly ending the year at GH¢80,069, representing a 40 percent increase over 2015’s performance of GH¢47,818.
The fund registered very steady growth during the period under review.
Assets under management (AUM) increased from GH¢303,941 to GH¢480,222, representing almost 40 percent growth.
The number of unit holders also grew from 271 to 325 over the period, representing a 15 percent growth in the client base.
Richie Rich won the “Market Money Fund of the Year 2015” at the Ghana Investment Awards organised in November last year.
The fund invested largely in Government of Ghana T-bills in the first two quarters of the year taking advantage of the relatively higher return on T-bills at the time.
In the course of the year, the portfolio was spread out into other higher earning fixed income instruments to balance out the falling return on Government securities.
The Legacy Unit Trust also grew by 30.33 percent to GH¢692.848 from GH¢531,588.
This is a marked improvement over the previous year’s growth of 1.6 percent.
The number of unit holders however shrunk marginally to 164 from 167 at end of 2015, despite the impressive growth in assets in 2016.
“The economic and market performance were factors that partly affected investors’ decisions. The capital market posted unimpressive results as the GSE composite index posted a negative return of 15.33 percent at the end of the year.
“Legacy Unit trust holds positions in shares and the significant drop in the prices of the shares held by the Fund, including CAL, EGL, GCB and TOTAL in 2016 affected the performance of the Fund.
“Nevertheless, under the circumstances, the trust made an impressive return of 22.17 percent, a marked improvement over the previous year’s performance of 13.73 percent.
A business desk report