EPF Announces 6 Per Cent Dividend For 2011, The Highest In A Decade

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 20 (Bernama) -- The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) today announced a dividend of six per cent for its members for the financial year ending Dec 31, 2011, an increase of 20 basis points from 5.8 per cent for 2010.
Chairman Tan Sri Samsudin Osman said the rate, the highest in 10 years, would involve payment of RM24.47 billion, from RM21.61 billion for the previous year.
Based on previous reports, the highest dividend announced by EPF was 8.5 per cent, paid to subscribers from 1983 to 1987.
Samsudin said 2011 marked another commendable achievement for EPF, despite the challenging investment landscape, by posting a gross investment income of RM27.24 billion, an increase of 13.18 per cent from 2010.
"It is the strongest performance since 2001, an affirmation of our long term and prudent investment strategy, combined with continuous efforts by our investment team," he said in a statement here today.
While the fixed income investments provided stable returns, Samsudin said, the EPF's overall performance was contributed by the gains in both the domestic and global public listed equities and management programmes.
As at Dec 31, 2011, he said EPF total investment assets continued to register healthy growth of 6.52 per cent to RM469.22 billion, from RM440.52 billion in 2010.
"This rise is primarily contributed by the positive net annual contributions from members and employers, as well as consistent and encouraging investment performance," he added.
He said equities formed the largest income contributor at RM13.29 billion or 48.81 per cent of the total income from investments.
"This is followed by loans and bonds, Malaysian government securities and money market instruments, which contribute RM7.54 billion, RM5.63 billion and RM656.36 million, respectively.
The balance of RM115.41 million or 0.43 per cent is from property and other miscellaneous income," he added.
Samsudin said EPF had gradually and cautiously moved into higher yielding assets within tolerable risk limits.
"The strategy seems to bode well, in advance of our expectation as we managed to out-perform the current fixed deposit and interest rates," he added.
He said one of the highlights of EPF investment activities in 2011 was the completion of the joint acquisition (with UEM Group) of Plus Expressway Berhad through co-investment vehicle, PLUS Malaysia Sdn Bhd.
"In addition, we have also expanded our global investment exposure in properties, as well as equities and Sukuks.
"These expansions are in line with our investment objective and strategy guided by our Strategic Asset Allocation and Risk Management Framework," he added.
He said EPF members could check their account statement for the crediting of the 2011 dividend either through the EPF kiosks, counters or i-Akaun, from tomorrow.

tunku : thank you EPF. with good corporate governance and with good government policies and hard works, we are able to achieve this. hopefully EPF will do better next year.