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Last week, I attended a new "global equity stabiliser fund" launched by RHB Asset Management Sdn Bhd (RHBAM), in collaboration with Schroder Investment Management in Singapore.
RHBAM CEO Ho Seng Yee targets the fund to clock-in RM200 million in asset under management (AUM) by end of this year.
As at Dec 31, 2014, RHBAM's portolio is:
This year, RHBAM targets its fund to grow to RM58 billion, done through various products that it will launch this year.
Last year, RHBAM's AUM came in at RM48.54 billion, a marginal 2.9% shy of its target of achieving RM49.99 billion that it has set earlier.
Below is my video coverage of this event:
As for opportunities this year, Ho said:
Overall, we believe central bank will remain highly accomodative, given fragile and uneven growth path.
Government, on the other hand, will remain committed to ensure growth engine to remain intact and hence, fiscal policy will remain expansionary in nature.
We still believe that equity is a better asset class, given improving global growth. Meanwhile, bond should serve as a hedge should global macro headwinds persist in 2015.
Meanwhile, Ho also provided RHBAM analysis of the recent budget revision announcement that Prime Minister Najib Razak made last week. The analysis is presented below, and the copy of the slide is here.
Last week, I attended an event hosted by Prasarana Malaysia Bhd, the asset owner and operator of light rail transit (LRT) and monorail.
Prasarana is expanding its service line, and it has ordered new light rail vehicles (LRVs) from China-based CSR Zhuzhou. Prasarana has committed a total investment of RM1 billion in channeling towards the purchase of these LRVs.
Prasarana said, it has bought 50 new LRVs, which has 6-car. Of this, 30 LRVs will be manufactured in China, while the remaining 20 LRVs will be manufactured in CSR Zhuzhou's plant in Perak.
The LRvs will be delivered in stages within the next two years. The first LRV was delivered on Jan 10, 2015. Details of Prasarana's LRVs are shown in the slide below. You can download the slides here.
Prasarana currently operates two LRT lines and one monorail lines, that covers a total length of 65km, which consist of 60 stations altogether.
The current ridership at each of its stations are shown in the chart below.
Prasarana is also in the midst of expanding the Ampang and Kelana Jaya lines.
The Ampang line extension will start from Sri Petaling Station and passes through Bukit Jalil, Kinrara, Puchong, and ends at Putra Heights. The extension is 18.1km long with 11 new stations. Combined with the existing line, the total length of Ampang Line after the completion of the LRT Line Extension Project will be 45.1km.
As for the Kelana Jaya extension, it will be from Kelana Jaya to Putra Heights. It will consist of 12 new stations, some of which will be integrated with KTM Komuter at Subang Jaya. Another station will also be integrated with new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) at Sunway.
Prasarana's factsheet is shown below. You can download the document here.
With the purchase of the new LRVs, Prasara hopes to increase its ridership by 40% to 750,000 passengers daily, so says the document here (page 3). Of course, this will depend on the delivery of its trains.
