Affin Hwang wins two Morningstar Malaysia fund awards

From left are Kamarudin Hashim, senior portfolio manager equity, Affin Hwang Asset Management Bhd Chow Kar Tzen and Anthony Serhan.

KUALA LUMPUR: Affin Hwang's two funds emerged as winners of Morningstar Asia Ltd's 2018 Malaysia Fund Awards on Tuesday.

Affin Hwang Select Asia (ex-Japan) Opportunity won the Best Asia-Pacific Equity Fund award and Affin Hwang Select Opportunity was adjudged the Best Malaysia Large-Cap Equity Fund.

Libra ASnitaBond Fund emerged the winner in the Best Malaysia Bond (Syariah) Fund category while the Libra BondExtra Fund took the top spot in the Best Malaysia Bond Fund category.

PMB Shariah Premier Fund won the Best Malaysia Large-Cap Equity (Syariah) Fund.

The CEO for Morningstar in Asia Nick Cheung said that over the years, Morningstar has earned trust from investors for its in-depth, unbiased, and independent analyses that help them make informed investment decisions.

“It’s our honour to recognise outstanding achievement in investment management again this year through the Morningstar awards,” he said.
 
Morningstar’s managing director of research strategy for Asia Pacific Anthony Serhan said all of the winners delivered strong three- and five-year returns after adjusting for risk, in addition to outperformance of their peers during the last 12 months. 

“These funds have demonstrated that they have the ability to earn strong returns over the long term without undue risk. We believe that taking a patient, long-term view to investing will ultimately help investors reach their financial goals,” he said.
 
The Securities Commission's executive director, market & corporate supervision, Kamarudin Hashim said in his keynote address that the industry’s ability to continue to grow over the years – including periods of challenging market conditions – was mainly due to to its well-accepted long-term investing proposition as well as continued investors’ trust and confidence in the Malaysian capital markets.

“To maintain the trust and confidence in our markets, the SC remains focused on continuing with our efforts to ensure sound and stable markets through effective governance and good conduct of capital market participants,” he said.

“And to enable our markets to remain competitive and attractive, we will continue with our developmental agenda that are aimed at, among others, providing investors with the widest market access and investment options possible to grow their wealth and savings.”
 
The annual Morningstar Malaysia Fund Awards are designed to help investors identify the funds that added the most value for investors within the context of their relevant peer group in 2017 and over longer time periods. 

Morningstar selects the winners using a quantitative methodology with a qualitative overlay that considers the one-, three-, and five-year performance history of all eligible funds, and adjusts returns for risk using Morningstar Risk, a measure that imposes a higher penalty for downside variation in a fund’s return than it does for upside volatility.