First Fund yields outperform T-Bills

First Fund, a money market fund managed by First Banc Financial Services, returned GHc 22,832,897 on its investment at the end of 2014.

This represents 75.5 per cent growth over the GHc12, 941,902 it recorded the previous year.

 The company’s Asset under Management (AUM) also surged from GHc13 million at the beginning of 2014 to GHc 22.8 million by the close of the year under review.

This was made known by the Board Chairman of the fund, Professor Cletus Dordunoo, at the fifth annual general meeting (AGM) of the fund in Accra last Tuesday.

He attributed the high performance of the fund to the high interest rates on the market in 2014. 

This feat, Prof. Dordunoo said, had helped the company to maintain its lead as the best performing fund on the market during the period closing the year, with a yield of 37.38 per cent.

“Despite the vulnerabilities experienced by the Ghanaian economy, on the back of large fiscal deficit and rising inflation which closed the year at 17 per cent, the fund is at least 10 per cent above all other mutual funds in the country,” he said.

Authorised by law to make public the report and financial statement annually, the fifth AGM brought together the board of directors, auditors and fundholders and was aimed at highlighting how the fund fared in 2014.

Best money market

Prof. Dordunoo explained that the fund had experienced a significant improvement because its client had grown by 26.88 per cent from 6,997 in 2013 to 8,869 in 2014.

He added that the money market fund had outperformed the Government of Ghana (GoG) treasury bills and other mutual funds in the market.

To maintain its standard as the best money market fund since 2010, Professor Dordunoo said the bank had introduced a new platform  to make statements of shareholders available online through the web platform.

The new platform, he said, would enable shareholders to monitor transactions more conveniently.

Another innovation, he indicated, was that the fund would  sign on to the e-zwich platform to give clients the flexibility of making top-ups and also enable them to receive their redemption payments on cards.

Outstanding performance

The Chief Investment Officer, Mr Samuel Annie Asiedu, explained that the fund’s performance was ahead of the average 91 and 182-day Treasury Bill (T-bill) rates for the year under review, with annual yield standing at 37.38 per cent, as against the T-bill rates which closed the year at 25.81 per cent and 26.41 per cent.

He added that the net asset value per share also rose as it began the year at GHc 0.20 and closed at GHc0.26.

Mr Asiedu said First Fund was committed to negotiating higher rates on its investment instruments to ensure that the fund retained its award as the Best Performing Money Market Fund for 2014.

He said the board and management were proud of their achievement for the year and would continue to focus on building a sustainable fund.