Bangkok--24 Feb--MT Multimedia
Principal Asset Management Company Limited (Principal)'s the Registered Provident Fund of Target Date Retirement (Target Date Retirement Fund) AUM which was over 7,800 million baht in value – a 30-percent growth – while setting the target for AUM to grow to 10,000 million baht in 2020. Target Date Retirement Fund once again was awarded the "Best Provident Fund (Pooled Fund) – under 10,000 million baht" for the third year in a row. The "Best Provident Fund Contest 2019" was in its 8th year running. The highlight of this particular fund was to be the private financial advisor for both members and employers, ranging from providing counsel, plans, arranging seminars and creating tools to follow up developments and a variety of investment policies. The Target Date Retirement Fund is separated into six policies for six groups of provident fund members from young adults just entering the employment to retirees, with the fund managers helping to adjust the proportions of investment in the fund on behalf of the provident fund members.
Pajaree Punyashthiti, Executive Vice President, Head of Provident Fund & Private Fund Business Development of Principal Asset Management Company Limited, revealed that the Company is determined to further develop the potentials of Target Date Retirement Fund to leverage it into a location for savings to be used after retirement. As of the end of 2019, the Target Date Retirement Fund was worth a total of 7,876 million baht – a 30-percent increase from the end of 2018 when the AUM was worth 6,055 million baht while the number of employers and members of the fund as of the end of 2019 increased to 229 and 31,869, respectively.
Most recently, Principal met with success in its management of the Target Date Retirement Fund when it was chosen as the winner of the "Best Provident Fund (Pooled Fund) – under 10,000 million baht" award from the "8th Best Provident Fund Contest 2019". This was the third victory in a row for the fund that also won the same award in 2017 and 2018.
"The factor that led to Principal winning this award for three years in a row was our policy to be the trusted advisor in the financial planning in anticipation of retirement age for the members of the fund. These include giving advice, investment planning, arranging seminars and creating tools to follow up developments and a variety of investment policies. Principal has a parent company that has vast experience in the management of pension funds in many countries and specifically the experience in the management of target date retirement funds in the United States for well over 15 years and in Thailand for over 5 years. We also have a web site, a mobile application and a program to calculate the retirement nest egg of the members called "Plan WISE Retire WELL" and investment plans can be changed online very conveniently and quickly," Pajaree said.
She further elaborated that the Target Date Retirement Fund is one of the most attractive funds of Principal Asset Management Co., Ltd. that is targeted to grow 25 percent or the AUM increasing to 10,000 million baht in 2020, and will use the selling point of the fund with its highly experienced fund managers to construct and adjust the investment portfolios by doing the asset allocation among bonds, Thai equity, foreign equity, REIT and gold on behalf of provident fund members. This is considered to be the investment plan with the most comprehensive list of a wide variety of assets. Therefore, members can choose the investment plan for the first time according to the year of retirement just once and the fund managers will adjust the investment during the entire time of the participation in the fund.
At the same time, another selling point of the fund is that when members retire there will still be the Target Date Post Retirement investment plan, or TD-P, to serve the retirees. The retired members may choose to be paid in installments from the fund at the frequency that the members want. And while the money sits in the fund, it will be managed by professional fund managers. Also, there are the five Target Risk policies to allow members who have experience and expertise in investment to allocate the proportions of the investment in bonds, Thai equity, foreign equity and REIT by themselves.
In addition, Principal also has other services to provide investment advice in provident fund to employers and members, such as the Provident Fund Analytical & Retirement Readiness Report, that helps employer to analyze employees' saving rate, investment plan, replacement ratio and Plan WISE Retire WELL which is an online service for fund members to try calculating their expected monthly income after retirement under the different hypotheses of the fund members which will be very useful for them.
As of December 31, 2019, Principal Asset Management Co., Ltd. was managing provident funds to the tune of 58,932 million baht making up 33 funds for 865 employers and more than 200,000 members.