Absa Investments, investment house of the Absa Group, reports a 41% increase in operational profit to R408 million in 2009 while assets under management and administration grew by 30% from R118 billion to R153 billion.
In wake of the Group’s annual results, Alan Miller, CEO of Absa Investments, noted that net inflows into the asset management business totalled R25 billion, mainly driven by strong institutional flows from both public and private sector pension funds.
Miller added: “Online share-trading deal values increased by 82%, from R2.2 billion in 2008 to R4.0 billion in 2009.
“Within our unit trust range some key products have made strong gains. These successes were spotlighted at the recent Raging Bull Awards at which our asset management received two awards and two certificates.
“The Absa Select Equity Fund has won recognition as South Africa’s top-performing general equity unit trust fund over three and five years. In addition, the Absa Absolute Fund, our flagship low-risk unit trust fund, last year enjoyed net inflows of almost R1 billion.”
Another highlight was the successful implementation of a new state-of-the-art LISP client administration system.
”Our business’s overall performance was pleasing in an extremely challenging environment,” said Miller. “We look for balance when constructing products and portfolios. We seek the same balance when building our own business. It was therefore satisfying to see broad progress with our long-term growth strategy. All teams made a contribution.”
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