BBLAM plans more fixed-income funds

Business News : Monday December 10, 2007

BBLAM plans more fixed-income funds

Company sees strong growth for 2008

NUNTAWUN POLKUAMDEE

BBL Asset Management will continue to launch fixed-income funds next year to serve Bangkok Bank depositors.

The asset management firm, a unit of the country's largest commercial bank, also forecasts strong growth in retirement mutual funds, long-term equity funds and foreign investment funds for 2008.

Voravan Tarapoom, managing director at BBLAM, said the company would still focus on open fixed income funds in 2008.

The company's fixed-income assets under management has risen to 111.74 billion baht as of Nov 30 from 88.52 billion at the end of 2006. Equity funds have risen in assets to 10.3 billion baht at the end of November from 6.39 billion at the end of 2006.

Mrs Voravan said RMF, LTF and foreign investment funds (FIF) also had grown rapidly this year. RMFs rose 76.88% to 5.09 million baht from 2.88 billion baht year-on-year through November; LTFs jumped 112.04% to 5.28 billion baht from 2.49 billion baht; and FIFs skyrocketed 307.77% to 15.9 billion baht from 3.9 billion baht.

''We will expand the asset sizes of RMFs, LTFs and FIFs through the bank's client networks, especially through the provident funds,'' said Mrs Voravan.

Most equity funds saw returns of more than 40%, while the SET index jumped about 24.51% from Jan to Nov. Fixed-income funds Bualuang Thanatawee saw an 11-month return of 3.21% and Bualuang RMF saw a return of 3.11%.

Since most investors of the company are depositors, they like to invest in products that are similar to deposits or savings, she said.

Mrs Voravan also said at the seminar at the Stock Exchange of Thailand yesterday that investors should study the ways of Warren Buffett, the well-known value investor who is the second-richest man in the world.

''Buffett never invests in assets that he doesn't know well. Warren Buffett's style is to invest in growth and good assets with a reasonable price. He always gets a return on investment of around 20-30% per year,'' said Mrs Voravan.

If investors have time to study assets they can invest by themselves, but if they don't have time to analyse and study a given security, they can invest through mutual funds, which now have different policies on investments, she said.

By : Bangkok Post