Mr Peter Larbi-Yeboa, the Fund Manager for the HFC Future Plan Trust and Equity Trust, says concrete strategies had been put in place to take advantage of the capital and money markets to ensure growth.

Mr Larbi-Yeboa, who is also the General Manager of HFC Investment Services Limited, a subsidiary of the HFC Bank (Ghana) Limited, gave the assurance in his report at the seventh and 12th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the HFC Future Plan Trust and Equity Trust respectively in Accra on Tuesday.

He assured the unit holders that although the global economy remained fragile with an uncertain outlook for most part of 2016 which led to a growth of 3.1 per cent, activities such as the less robust economic activity in the Sub-Saharan Africa on the back of falling commodity prices, the US election of Donald Trump as President and the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union, they could count on the fund managers to use their professional skills and experience to outperform the major market benchmark again.

He said the economic outlook for the HFC Future Plan Trust was expected to be a vibrant and robust project to grow at 6.3 per cent in 2017, and the stock market was also anticipated to close the year with a positive return, which would be a sharp deviation from happenings in 2015 and 2016.

The stock market, he said, was also expected to bounce back early in 2017, following a renewed interest from fund managers of the Equity Trust Fund, to accumulate stocks that were trading below their basic values, saying “in anticipation of this resurgence, acquisition will be made once the market bottoms out, to ensure you reap maximum returns”.

Mr  Larbi-Yeboa explained that based on the strategic asset  allocation for Equity, in response to changes in market conditions, they were optimistic that the Fund would once again out-perform the Ghana Stock Exchange’s Composite Index and again lead in the equity category of collective investment schemes on the market.

He said management would continue to market the unique characteristics of the funds, and improve asset diversification and earnings. Mr Larbie-Yeboa said both funds recorded good yields and competed favourably against other money market commodities by the close of 2016.   According to him, in spite of the numerous global and domestic market challenges for the period under review, the fund value of the Future Plan Trust recorded a 30.82 per cent growth in fund value year on year from GH?4.38 million in December 2015 to GH?5.73 million by same period in 2016.

The Equity Trust Fund increased to GH¢5.32 million in 2016, gaining 2.90 per cent more than the GH¢ 5.17 million recorded in the previous year.

He said amidst the economic challenges and the bearish stock market, both the Future Plan Trust and Equity Trust Funds closed the year with 18.55 per cent and 7.35 per cent respectively.

The Future Plan Trust at the close of 2016 had total asset value of GH¢ 5.78 million as against GH¢ 4.41 million in 2015. Net Assets grew to GH¢5.73 million compared to GH¢4.35 million during same period.

In the case of the Equity Trust Fund, total income amounted to GH¢915,628 in the year under review, compared to GH¢1,435,018 in 2015, while the net investment income amounted to GH¢ 584,056, against the 1,270,539 recorded in the previous year.

At the end of the meetings, Unit holder accepted the Fund Manager and auditor’s reports and further approved the authorisation for fixing the remuneration of the Auditors for 2017.