ASNB OFFERS 488 MILLION ADDITIONAL UNITS OF AMANAH SAHAM DIDIK (ASD)

24 November 2008



KUALA LUMPUR –Amanah Saham Nasional Berhad (ASNB), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) has announced a 488 million additional new units of Amanah Saham Didik (ASD) to be opened for subscription beginning today.

Transactions of the new ASD units started this morning at 8.15 am at all ten ASNB full operation offices nationwide. Unit holders could also subscribe to the new ASD units at the 1,627 ASNB agents’ branches nationwide subject to their operating hours.
With these additional units, the fund size of ASD has increased to 3.0 billion units from 2.512 billion units previously.


President and Group Chief Executive of PNB, YBhg Tan Sri Dato’ Hamad Kama Piah bin Che Othman said the new additional units would enable more investors to own units in the fund.
“The fund had received overwhelming response previously and we are confident that it will continue to receive similar response with these additional units”, he said.
This is the second launch of ASD additional units this year after a similar exercise in July with 200 million additional units offered.


Similarly last year, ASD had two new additional launches during the year, in July involving 200 million units and in November with 300 million units.


ASD was launched on April 20th, 2001 with an initial fund size of 300 million units.
The fund size was first increased in 2002 with 200 million units, followed by 2004 with 200 million units, 2005 with 500 million units and 300 million units in July, 2006.


For the financial year ended June 30th, 2008, ASNB had announced an income distribution of 7.00 sen per unit.


ASD is a fixed priced unit trust fund opened to Bumiputera investors as early as 6 months old. Investors can also invest in the ASD using the Employees Provident Fund Member’s Scheme.

ASD is aimed at Bumiputera investors who would like to invest for their future or their childrens’ education needs. Since its launch, the average income distribution for the ASD fund is 7.4 sen per unit.