Gong Xi Fa Cai! 

Was just informed by my dearest Lil Mom that PNB will be launching additional units for its two funds –  the Amanah SahamWawasan 2020  and Amanah Saham Malaysia – on March 12. A total of 800 million units on ASM and 1 billion units on ASW 2020 will be available for sale.  

This time around there will be a capping of 50,000 units per fund for each investor and this would be imposed for two weeks from March 12-26, 2007. That’s good news indeed. Looks like PNB has paid heed to the unhappy investors who missed out on the last ASW 2020 release in August 06. The units were sold out within the first half hour due to early bird investors who invested in large denominations (ie. in hundreds of thousands of Ringgit (read my earlier posts (first, second) on this topic).

Both ASM and ASW are fixed-priced equity funds open to all Malaysians aged six months and above. However as for before, 51% of the ASW 2020 units will reserved for Bumiputra investors with the balance available to non-Bumiputras. ASM has no bumiputra quota.  

The new units will be available for subscription begining 9.30am at 1,400 agents and Amanah Saham Nasional Bhd branches nationwide.  

ASM was launched in April 2000 with an initial fund size of two billion units, and has twice offered additional units since then. As at March 6, ASM fund stood at 4.2 billion units.  ASW, the first fund open to all Malaysians, was launched in 1996 with an initial fund size of three billion units. It launched another one billion units last year, which saw the 49% non-bumiputera units fully taken up in less than half an hour.  

As for the distribution rate, ASM declared a distribution of 6.8 sen and 7.1 sen per unit for 2006 and 2005 respectively, whereas ASW 2020 declared 6.75 sen and 7.2 sen per unit for 2006 and 2005 respectively. So this gives a rough indicator the type of return that can be expected from both funds.

Also, PNB has announced that it is planning to allocate up to 30% of its assets under management into overseas investments going forward. This will provide for greater diversification, and perhaps even higher returns for ASM and ASW investors. 

Good luck — hope everyone gets a fair go this time around! 🙂