Mid-earners, yuppies drive mutual investments growth

CEBU, Philippines - Aside from the growing interest of middle-income earners to take advantage of mutual fund investments, a huge untapped market has also been noted from the young generation for the same instruments.

Fund management company, PhilAm Asset Management Inc. (PAMI) president and chief executive officer (CEO) Karen Liza M. Roa said that the outlook for mutual fund investments in the Philippines is promising, with middle-income and young professionals leading the growth.

She said because of the improved purchasing power of Filipinos now due to upbeat economic activity and seemingly stable economy, a larger portion of the population is now looking at high-yielding and safer investment instruments, such as mutual funds.

In 2008 alone, the mutual fund industry in the Philippines grew by from P65 billion to P90 billion in portfolio today.

This is a good indication that Filipinos are now more financially aware on where to put their money.

According to Roa, PAMI also noted a big shift of investors’ profile, from largely high-end market, now the company noted an active interest from the Philippines’ fat ‘middle-income’ segment, including those young professionals.

 A mutual fund is a collective type of investment that pools money from investors to buy stocks, bonds, short-term money market instruments and other securities.

Part of the company’s active stance now is to reinforce the interest of the high-paid BPO workers to invest their money in proper places, and that mutual fund is one of the safest investments, an investor could consider for, she said.

Roa said this would be the best time to launch PAMI Asia Balanced Fund Inc. so that Filipino investors could ride with the economic boom in Asia and tap the best performing industries in the best performing countries without investing so much.

The minimum initial investment for the fund is P5,000, which will be invested in fast growing industries in countries like Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia and South Korea.

PAMI is a fund management company that manages the PhilAm Family of mutual funds. It is a wholly owned company owned by Philamlife.

She said Cebu and the rest of Southern Philippine markets is one of the company’s growth drivers, while there is an increasing awareness for mutual fund investments in this part of the country.  (FREEMAN)