Amanah Saham 1Malaysia

Over the past few weeks we’ve been hearing a lot about 1Malaysia and the latest ASN fund to be released, Amanah Saham 1Malaysia. unfortunately, the fund seems to be restricted to Malaysian investors. Nevertheless, as with ASB, many expats who do live in Malaysia can use their spouse ASN account to hold ASN units.

As the fund will open to subscription tomorrow, I did a quick search and found an excellent article from S. Dali stripping down Amanah Saham 1Malaysia facts and exploring some of its implications. A quick extract so that those who just want the AS1M facts don’t have to go too far

Amanah Saham 1Malaysia (AS 1Malaysia), an all-Malaysian fund managed by Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB). As of end-2008, PNB’s AUM of RM120 billion amounted to 18.1% of the total market capitalisation of Bursa Malaysia.

Amanah Saham 1Malaysia is a fixed price products sell at 1ringgit per unit, like ASB/ASW/ASM, it is an equity fund with around 70% or more (of fund size) exposure to equity.

The fund will be invested in Malaysian companies with its yield benchmark according to 5-year Malaysian government yields which currently hovers around 3.7 to 4.0 percent.

S1M will not be the biggest fund under PNB. ASB is the biggest fund so far with RM62bil fund in circulation (as per its annual report ended 31/12/08), even ASW has the approved fund size of RM14 billion. e) ASM and ASW2020 give out dividends based on the returns of their investment portfolios, which are 95% equity and 5% others. Their returns have been consistently above 6% over the years. However, this does not mean that it cannot go lower than 6%.

To my knowledge it is not capital guaranteed. The Securities Commission guidelines has it clearly defined that if its a GUARANTEED FUND – (1) A guaranteed fund is one which guarantees investors will get back the capital invested, with some returns (if any), or guarantees investors a certain investment return payable at a pre-determined date in the future. (2) The word “guarantee” must appear in the fund’s name. Where a fund does not comply with the requirements in this appendix, it must not use the word “guarantee”, or any other name which may imply some form of guarantee, in its name or in its promotional materials. Such a fund is prohibited from holding itself out as a guaranteed fund.

And those who wish to dig deeper can click on this link: Amanah Saham 1Malaysia – The Facts & Implications.