January 11, 2003	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 7, 1423

KARACHI, Jan 10: Governor State Bank, Dr Ishrat Hussain, and Chairman of Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), Khalid A. Mirza, have lauded the role played by ABAMCO towards the development of mutual funds in the country.

They visited the offices of ABAMCO, says a statement of the organization issued here on Friday evening.

The Executive Director of ABAMCO Limited, Jahangir Siddiqui, made a presentation on the performance of the organization since its inception in 1995.

He pointed out that ABAMCO is currently managing three open-end mutual funds. Unit Trust of Pakistan (UTP), ABAMCO’s flagship fund was launched on October 27, 1997 with a seed capital of Rs325 million and has a fund size in excess of Rs1.3 billion.

It was stated that the par value of units is Rs5,000. The fund has shown an annualized return of 19.5 per cent since the launch. UTP has been assigned AA (F) rating by PACRA.

On the occasion, Habib-ur-Rahman, chairman and chief executive of ABAMCO gave a briefing on the regulatory issues relating to mutual funds.—APP