Addressing Bank of Valletta salespersons at a seminar which was held at The Palace hotel in Sliema, Peter Perotti, general manager of Valletta Fund Management Ltd gave a review of the performance of VFM's funds for the quarter ending last December.
He announced that as at December 31, 2007, VFM had over €692.1 million (Lm 297.1 million) of funds under management, an increase of 1.28 per cent or €8.7 million (Lm3.7 million) over the total amount of funds under management as at September 30, 2007.
With a total of over 47,000 active accounts as at end December 2007, VFM is at the forefront of Malta's fund management business.
Mr Perotti also spoke about the range of euro-denominated investment funds which invest across all asset classes to include money market, bonds, equity, property and absolute return funds, in different geographic markets and have different risk profiles to meet the investment requirements of all types of investors.
"The VFM euro funds are already extremely popular with investors, with over €195.5 million invested across these funds as at December 31." Mr Perotti added that most of these funds can also be accessed through a monthly investment plan.
The sales seminar was also addressed by Mark Vella, head of marketing at Valletta Fund Management Ltd, who spoke about the performance of the international markets with particular reference to its impact on VFM`s range of international funds.
Grace Debono, sales and marketing executive spoke about the latest fund launched by VFM - the Wignacourt Capital Guaran-teed Commodity Fund. This fund is a five-year investment denominated in euro, giving investors an opportunity to participate in a basket of soft commodities consisting of an equal weighting of wheat, cocoa, orange juice, sugar and coffee, while offering full capital guarantee.
Shareholders holding their investment up to the termination date will receive the higher of a five per cent minimum return or 75 per cent of the arithmetic average of the ten basket performance taken on a mid-yearly basis. The fund offers the advantage of an early redemption structure.
Later on, David Pace Ross from BoV's Stockbroking, Advisory and Portfolio Management Unit, gave a review as well as an outlook of the local market and spoke about the potential of investing in VFM's range of equity, bond and balanced Malta funds.
These seminars are organised by Valletta Fund Management quarterly to keep the BOV licensed sales personnel abreast of the development in the local and international markets as well as on the performance of VFM's range of funds.