KUALA LUMPUR: The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) has recorded a 13.47 per cent surge in investment income to RM10.40 billion for the second quarter ended June 31 this year versus RM9.16 billion in the corresponding quarter last year.
The improved global and the emerging markets investment climate had facilitated EPF in carrying out investment and profit taking activities, its chief executive officer Datuk Shahril Ridza Ridzuan said.
“We are able to maintain the previous quarter’s momentum on the back of a stable and encouraging Malaysian economy,” he said in a statement here yesterday.
The EPF will continue to diversify into alternative investments, namely real assets, comprising both real estates and infrastructures, amid rising trend in inflation rate.
During the period, investments in real estates and infrastructures represented RM14.92 billion or 2.44 per cent of the total EPF investment assets.
Shahril Ridza said both domestic and international equities generated investment returns of RM6.49 billion, up 16.06 per cent or RM898.50 million, compared with the corresponding period last year.
Loans and bonds were the second largest contributors to investment income, generating RM1.85 billion in returns.
Malaysian government securities and equivalents generated an income of RM1.74 billion, registering an increase of 13.77 per cent.
Real estate and infrastructure posted an income of RM184.12 million compared with RM296.28 million in the second quarter last year while money market instruments contributed RM107.32 million in investment income.
EPF’s Investment assets registered a growth of RM58.49 billion from RM553.92 billion in the second quarter last year to RM612.41 billion.
Shahril Ridza said the EPF injected RM3.4 billion to external fund managers, of which US$350 million was channelled into global equity mandates and US$300 million into global sukuk mandates.
For the domestic mandates, RM800 million was injected into domestic bonds and RM500 million into equity.
To date, the EPF exposures managed by external fund managers stand at 12.77 per cent across equity and fixed income instruments for both domestic and global mandates. — Bernama