PFMB Declares 3.56 Sen Dividend For Prudential Balanced Fund

Prudential Fund Management Bhd(PFMB) has declared an income distribution of 3.56 sen per unit for the unit holders of its Prudential Balanced Fund.

The distribution is equivalent to five percent on Net Asset Value of the fund as at July 31, 2009, the company said in a statement.

The fund saw a one, three and five-year return of 5.01 percent, 32.27 percent and 41.30 percent respectively.

Set up in 2001, the fund is intended to provide investors with capital appreciation and a reasonable level of current income by investing in a mixed portfolio of companies with good dividend yield and low price volatility and a portfolio of investment-grade fixed-income securities.

This would be the fourth time an income distribution has been announced for the fund which has, since its inception, recorded a return of 117.98 percent, outperforming its benchmark, by 48.20 percent.

PFMB said the fund gained from selected big-cap holdings especially the banks, as investors positioned their funds to reflect the new weighting in the new FBMKLCI index.

"The banking sector comprises a major sector weighting for the new index. The fund's exposure in corporate bonds also helped the fund's relative performance as corporate bonds yield higher returns than the benchmark RAM quant shop Medium Index in June," said the Chief Executive Officer-Designate of PFMB, Thomas Cheong.

"We believe that the current liquidity driven rally is still intact, at least in the short term, on expectations of impending pump priming activities and positive policy changes," Cheong said.