The Republic Unit Trust is celebrating 30 years of unique service to its cherished unitholders, enabling consistent savings culture towards the acquisition of valuable assets.
Speaking at the launch of the 30-years celebration and annual general meeting of the unit trust, the Chief Executive Officer of the Fund, Madeline Nettey said: “30 years is not an easy milestone; Republic Investment has shown its resilience in fund management.
We have seen companies come and go but we have stayed all this while. We have provided liquidity for our client. We are, if not the only one among the few investment houses that pays immediate redemption.”
She added: “In the next 30 years we promise to be exciting. There various innovations being adopted to ensure that investors have easy and convenient ways of investing their funds. There are a number of activities line-up, including a waiver of the frontload fees within the anniversary period to appreciate our unit holders and to encourage you to bring on board other people. We also along on the referral bonus which will compensate unit holders that bring on on-bard other unit holders. We have our mobile application coming up as well.”
Fund performance
The Republic Unit Trust closed the year 2020 with a net fund value of GH¢304.24 million from a position of GH¢264.21 million in December 2019 representing a growth of 15.15%. This was mainly attributable to the quality of underlying assets.
Despite the massive rippling effect of the COVID-19, the CEO said the strategic focused marketing and sustained patronage by unit holders helped in contribute to making it a money market fund of choice. The fund recorded a return 10.50% at the end of the period.
“Your fund anticipated the challenges in terms of withdrawals to support the immediate needs of our cherished unitholders and was able to provide the needed liquidity to meet redemption requests of its unitholders. The period under review also saw an overwhelming use of the short code *737*80# by retail clients to invest in the fund at their convenience. Deposits through this medium recorded a 265.79% growth in the year 2020,” she said.
As a result of new subscriptions, the number of unit holders increased to 47,120 in 2020 from 45,777 in 2019.
Fund strategy and outlook for 2021
The CEO indicated that the trust’s strategies for 2021 will be to continue to remain the fund of choice for its highly esteemed investors and provide them with a one-stop shop for all their investment needs both short, medium and long-term.
“The preservation of your investment is of utmost importance to us and that will continue to inform our asset selection and prudent management of the fund. Risk management would remain core to investment decisions with the aim to consolidate gains made in prior years,” she said.
“Your Fund Manager will therefore continue to implement strategies necessary to protect clients’ funds at all times and seek to increase its holdings in secured investments including GOG Securities and Secured Corporate bonds, among others, until such a time that investing in other asset classes is permissible after a thorough due diligence,” The CEO assured the investors.
“Although the year 2020 was challenging, the fund manager was able to weather the storm; in the year 2021, the fund will continue to be resilient and agile in its investment allocation based on the investment climate and the inherent risk therein.”
