ICRA reaffirms [SL] AAAmf mutual fund rating to NDB Wealth Management’s Gilt Eged Fund

ICRA Lanka Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of ICRA Ltd., an associate of Moody’s Investors Service, has reaffirmed its credit risk rating of ‘[SL] AAAmf’ issued to NDB Wealth Management’s Eagle Gilt Edged Fund.

The rating indicates that the underlying portfolio has the lowest credit risk and the highest degree of safety from credit losses. The rating in Sri Lanka is assigned on an eight-point scale developed specifically for the country, and ranges from ‘[SL] AAA’ to ‘[SL] D’. The suffix of “mf” is to denote that the rating pertains to the local mutual fund schemes. This rating scale ranks the relative default risk associated with issuers/debt/schemes in Sri Lanka.

The Eagle Gilt Edged Fund is part of the “myeaglefunds” family of mutual funds and is one of the fixed income funds managed and marketed by NDB Wealth Management Limited. The asset management company, previously known NDB Aviva Wealth Management Limited was owned 51:49 by National Development Bank Plc (NDB), and Aviva Group, sixth largest insurance group in the world respectively.

However in Dec-12 subsequent to AIA Group Limited acquiring a 92.3 percent stake in Aviva NDB Insurance from Aviva and NDB, the 49% ownership in NDB Wealth Management held by Aviva was transferred to NDB Capital Holdings PLC, thus making NDB Wealth Management a 100 % subsidiary of the NDB Bank.