EPF 3Q investment income jumps 44% yoy to RM10.11b

by **Cals** Tue 26 Nov 2013, 05:02

Business & Markets 2013

Written by Jeffrey Tan of theedgemalaysia.com

Monday, 25 November 2013 16:46

KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 25): The Employees Provident Fund (EPF)’s investment income jumped 44% year-on-year (y-o-y) to RM10.11 billion in the third quarter ended Sept 30, 2013, from RM7.02 billion a year ago.

In a statement, EPF CEO Datuk Shahril Ridza Ridzuan said: “The performance is primarily driven by a more robust equity market on both domestic and foreign fronts, coupled with a significant rise in trading volume in the third quarter.”

“We have also benefited from higher dividend payouts from listed companies due to improved earnings.”

The EPF said equities income increase to RM5.71 billion, up RM3.37 billion from RM2.34 billion in the previous corresponding quarter.

Real estate and infrastructure assets also surged to RM429.16 million from RM54.62 million a year earlier, continuing the growth in performance since Q1 this year, it said.

However, loans and bonds fell to RM2.28 billion from RM3.06 billion in the 3Q last year. The EPF said the higher Q3 2012 income was also due to one-off capital market transactions, which were not repeated in 3Q this year.

The EPF also highlighted Malaysian Government Securities and Equivalents rose 0.18% y-o-y to RM1.55 billion, while money market instruments contributed RM145.23 million in the reviewed quarter.

The national provident fund said as at 3Q this year, the EPF’s total overseas exposure rose to 20.39% of its total investment assets based on book value from 18.97% in the preceding quarter.

It said an additional US$2.50 billion (RM8.06 billion) of overseas investments were made. From this total, US$ 2.25 billion (RM7.25 billion) had been channeled into global equity mandates and the balance invested in global bonds, infrastructure and private equities.

Additionally, the EPF’s investments assets increased to RM568.04 billion from RM510.19 billion a year earlier, a rise of RM57.85 billion.

On the global economic outlook, Shahril said: “Even though we see signs of the global economy gradually improving, we remain concerned that the recovery is fragile, given ongoing policy and economic risks in the United States, Europe and China.”

“The EPF will continue with its policy of targeting real returns via prudent asset allocation and investment strategies.”