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The Unit Trust Management Co. (Pvt) Ltd., (UTMCL), the manager of Ceybank Unit Trust Funds, and Bank of Ceylon, the Trustee, have announced an increased dividend of 50 cents per unit to the unit holders of Ceybank Unit Trust Funds for FY 2002/03 executive Director CEO, Chitra Sathkumara said.

This is a 25% increase over the last year's dividend distribution. Based on the offer prices as at April 1, 2002, this gives a dividend yield of 7.5% for Ceybank Unit Trust, and 5.3% for Ceybank Century Growth Fund. This is in addition to the capital appreciation.

Ceybank Unit Trust, Sri Lanka's largest unit trust fund with net assets over Rs. 1,000 million as at end March 2003, has beaten the All Share Index (ASI) once again by 4.4% margin during the financial year ending March 31, 2003.

The ASI has grown by 19.7% and Ceybank Unit Trust bid price appreciated by 24.1%.

During the 24-months ended March 31, 2003, Ceybank Unit Trust has beaten the ASI by 17.5% margin, and during the past 36-months it has beaten the index by 20.8% margin thus showing consistent performance as shown in the table.

During the FY02/03 Ceybank Unit Trust has realised Rs. 130 million as capital gains and its equity portfolio has grown to Rs. 798 million, he said.

UTMCL has decided to distribute Rs. 65 million, part of which is from realised capital gains. The unit holders have the option to reinvest this dividend in the Fund without the usual 5% front-end fee.

Ceybank Century Growth Fund is the largest equity fund among the growth funds in the country. Century, launched in December 1996, seeks to provide capital appreciation to the unit holders in the medium term by investing primarily in the equity market.

Even though Century is a growth fund, its income is distributed from time to time to give maximum tax benefits to its investors and this is the fifth dividend distributed by the Fund.

Century Fund has shown outstanding performance during the FY02/03 to lead the unit trust industry with 27.7% growth thus outperforming the ASI by 8.1%. During the 24 months ended March 31, 2003, Century has beaten the ASI by 22.6% margin, and during the past 36-months it has beaten the index by 28.7% margin thus showing consistent performance as shown in the table.

Ceybank Fund Managers, with the intention of achieving capital growth with the expected upward movement of the market in the medium term, has made significant shift in the asset allocation of their Funds.

The Fund's investments are well diversified and the equality is heavily weighted towards Banking, Manufacturing and Diversified sectors. These sectors are expected to rebound and therefore, Ceybank Unit Trust Funds are well placed to take advantage of the potential upside in the market.

"We believe Ceybank unit holders can expect reasonable capital gains from the appreciation of unit prices in the medium term", Sathkumara said.

The Bank of Ceylon, Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation, Carson Cumberbatch and Co., Unit Trust of India and HSBC Asset Management are the shareholders of the UTMCL.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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