KUALA LUMPUR: The Securities Commission (SC) will soon be making amendments to the guidelines for the unit trust industry to allow for greater flexibility and choices to meet investors’ needs, said chairman Tan Sri Zarinah Anwar.
She said the unit trust industry was developing rapidly and that there was a need to innovate and find new ways of doing things.
“Investors also need more choices. The idea behind the amendments is to allow greater flexibility in terms of offering more choices to investors to meet their needs,” Zarinah told reporters after the Edge-Lipper-Malaysia Fund Awards 2010 presentation yesterday.
The SC chief said that among the key changes was allowing multiple currencies for unit trust funds.
“In the new guidelines the Securities Commission will allow offerings to be made in multiple currencies to encourage unit trust funds to be distributed overseas.
“It will help facilitate greater investment, say, by foreign investors who may find it difficult to cope with the exchange rate vagaries. So if they can invest in their own currencies the changes will then facilitate greater investments,” Zarinah said.
On the timeline for the amendments, she said: “It’s being worked on and as soon as we get the amendments ready the Securities Commission will be publishing it.”
On recent cases of corporate high-flyers that did not abide by the Mergers and Takeover Guidelines to take listed companies private, she said the SC would review the situation.
“If there is a need to change then the revision will be made but with any changes we will consult the stakeholders involved and make it public as soon as we are ready,” she said.
On the unit trust industry, Zarinah said that in December 1993, the country had 43 funds with a total net asset value (NAV) of RM28.1bil but by end-2009, the industry had grown to 541 funds with a total NAV of RM191.7bil.
“The NAV makes up 19.18% of the capitalisation of our stock market,” she noted, adding that there were now 14 million account-holders in a variety of fund categories.
At present, there are 201 funds with exposure to foreign investments representing 10.17% of the total industry NAV.
“The net sales of RM24.8bil for the industry in 2009 represented an amount close to the entire NAV of the industry as at Dec 21, 1993,” she said.
Zarinah said by all accounts, Malaysia’s unit trust industry had done extremely well.
“The challenge now is to sustain this performance and develop the depth and breath of the industry. Supporting this effort is high on the Securities Commission’s agenda,” she said.
Zarinah said one of the top challenges ahead was assuring investors that their investments would receive the appropriate levels of protection and oversight.
Another major challenge was to provide a facilitative regulatory framework for unit trust funds to operate, she said.
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