Accra, March 20, GNA - The Mensah Sabbah Hall Alumni Association of the University of Ghana on Thursday made history to be the first to introduce a closed-end mutual fund on the Ghana Stock Exchange aimed at constructing a state-of-the-art accommodation facility for students. The fund, known as the Vikings Investment Fund made its initial public offer on Thursday, to raise 7.3 million GH cedis, with the Prudential Securities Limited as the lead sponsoring brokers and CIDAN Investments and Advisory Services as managers.

As a closed-end fund, the offer was to provide liquidity to investors who wish to exit or cash out their investment at any time, as well as earn capital appreciation and dividend income on their shares. New shares therein would not be created, but there would be offers and bids on a continuing basis throughout the life of the Fund. The offer, which is expected to end on April 14, 2008, has pegged its share price at 5Gp per share.

Launching the Fund, Professor Dominic Fobih, Minister of Education Science and Sports lauded the initiative saying; "At a time when growth in facilities at the Universities do not march increased demand, the fund, given its aim will largely help to solve the problem." He said government, realising the importance of tertiary education, had for the past seven years consistently increased the budgetary allocations to the tertiary sector.

Prof. Fobih said under the Teaching and Learning Fund, government had committed about 7.48 million GH cedis last year for improvement in infrastructure facilities in tertiary institutions in addition to a 34 million GH cedis it voted earlier.

Additionally, the Education Minister announced that Parliament last week approved 51.2 million GH cedis, which is 31.4 percent of the total expected revenue under the Get Fund for tertiary education. For Mr. Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning said, the Fund was a perfect idea and an innovation that would further enhance Ghana's capital market. "Ghana's savings rate is low between eight to 10 percent compared to the 25 percent world average figure.

"Our ability to increase the savings rate depends on many factors, which included new innovative products like Vikings Investment Fund by the Alumni of the Sabbah Hall."

Mr. Baah-Wiredu said, as the country grew, it was important that its service sector's share in the Gross Domestic Product increased to a level far more than its agricultural and manufacturing sector. Mr. John Saka Addo, Chairman, Prudential Bank Limited said the problem of accommodation at the universities had come about as a result of over-utilisation of facilities and lack of adequate expansion. He was confident that the Fund would offer an attractive investment returns to all prospective shareholders giving the grave needs of accommodation every year at the University of Ghana. Prof. Kwesi Yankah, Pro-Vice Chancellor of University described the idea as a "residential nationalism" which had been made possible through a sense of social cohesion created out of distinctive identity of a hall.

According to him, "The Sabbah Hall Alumi has targeted a key source of stress within the University of Ghana over the years." He said of the about 28,000-student population at the University, only 9,000 lived in traditional halls, with the rest living in rented hotels outside the university. "Congestion at the halls of the university is serious and is adversely affecting academic work," Prof. Yankah noted.

Mr. Kwaku Kyei, President of the Vikings Alumni Association said the idea to construct the hostel to be named Sabbah Hall Annex C, was conceived by the Alumni five years ago.

He said the initial attempt to rely on Alumni members to begin the project, yielded little result thus compelling the Association to seek the investment approach, which gave birth to Vikings Investment Fund. He said the University provided the land on which the project would be put up and urged other halls, both at Legon and other universities in the country to emulate the idea. 20 March 08