ASNB To Issue 1 Billion New ASM Units Next Week

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 28 (Bernama) -- Amanah Saham Nasional Bhd (ASNB), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB), will launch one billion new units of Amanah Saham Malaysia (ASM) on Dec 1.

PNB president/chief executive, Tan Sri Hamad Kama Piah Che Othman, said the new units would be opened for subscription at 8.00am simultaneously at all the ten ASNB's full operation offices and its 1,627 agents' branches nationwide.

"With these additional units, the fund size of ASM will increase to 7.2 billion units compared with 6.2 billion units currently," he said when announcing the distribution of seven sen per unit income distribution for ASN3 here recently.

To enable more people to invest, Hamad Kama Piah said a subscription limit of 10,000 units for each account would be imposed from Dec 1-7 and no limit would be imposed after that period.

"The most recent offer of ASM's additional units was in July 2007 which saw all the 500 million units, capped at 50,000 units per investor, fully taken up in 30 minutes," he said.

Since its launch, the average income distribution for the ASM funds was 7.12 sen per unit.

In a statement, PNB said the units would provide good investment opportunity for investors despite the volatility of the stock market in recent times.

Hwang DBS Securities fund manager, Teoh Han Chong, said he was comfortable with investments in PNB as the unit trust agency has been conservative, prudent and able to consistently provide good returns to unitholders.

"The returns have been good at about eight percent per annum, but I will be more satisfied if it can be maintained at about five percent to six percent," he said.

He said the returns of five percent to six percent were "still good" compared to the current fixed deposit rate of about 3.5 percent.

-- BERNAMA



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