FAMI gears up for expansion year

MANILA, Philippines - The First Metro Asset Management Inc. (FAMI) is optimistic its mutual funds or assets under management (AUM) will expand dramatically in 2015 after a consolidation phase in 2014.

FAMI president Augusto M. Cosio Jr. said more funds will be plowed into the country’s mutual fund industry, including FAMI’s this year as the investing public looks for more options. 

“We believe that it will go higher as we convince more people that long term returns in mutual funds outperform many other asset classes in the long run,” Cosio said.

FAMI is a subsidiary of the First Metro Investment Corp. (FMIC), which in turn, is a member of the Metrobank Group.

It is one of the leading asset managers overseeing several mutual funds invested in the fixed income or bond markets, equity or securities market, money market, all in a mixture of peso and US dollar transactions.

Cosio explained that mutual funds are savings and investment vehicles, which enable people to accumulate saving even at a small amount for as long as they invest regularly, prudently and religiously. 

Initial minimum placements as low as P5,000 and additional minimum investments of P2,000.

“Investing in mutual funds should not be seen as opportunistic but in coherence with a person’s long term savings goals,” he added.

Meanwhile, the country’s first exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has not firmly entered the psyche of the investing public both in the individual and institutional level. 

Many think that the ETF is not liquid since volume traded is not high.

“The ETF is the only issue listed in the stock market that has secondary liquidity, i.e. we can always sell the underlying portfolio as redemption units,” Cosio explained.

The First Metro Philippine Equity ETF (FMETF) is effective for those who may want to have a long-term exposure to the Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEi) as it will always go the way of the index.

“If you believe as we do that the market will do well this year or in succeeding years, the FMETF is your best index proxy,” the FAMI chief executive said.

The PSEi is forecast to exceed the 8,000-level this year, after recently breaching the 7,400-level.

FAMI manages six mutual funds, which invests in a variety of investible funds including stock market or equities, fixed income or bond market, and US dollar-denominated bond market.

They fall under the generic family of First Metro Save and Learn mutual funds (SAL). These are: equity fund, fixed income fund, balanced fund, dollar bond fund, and global opportunity fund.

One Wealthy Nation Fund Inc., the sixth fund, is a balanced mutual fund that invests in dividend yielding stocks and good quality bonds allowing investors to earn from both capital growth and potential dividend income.

Presently, the asset manager takes care of approximately 42,000 account holders.