KUALA LUMPUR: PMB Investment Bhd is confident of achieving its RM2 billion assets under management (AUM) target by 2016 as it believes it has good risk management.

Its chief executive officer Ameer Ali Mohamed told a press conference yesterday that currently they already have RM1.116 billion worth of AUM.

“Right now we have RM1.116 billion worth of AUM, which we expect to increase to RM1.4 billion by year-end. By 2016, we are confident of achieving RM2 billion. What our consultants will do is map risk tolerance to the various funds we have such as our index funds, premier funds, dividend funds, balance funds and others.

“So we list our funds by their risk levels and we train our consultants not to push the product but to address the investors’ issues personally. If an investor has a certain amount of risk factor for instance, what should be the best product for him or her?” Ameer Ali explained about the group’s strategy.

PMB Investment has 13 trust funds in total focusing purely on equity. Its target market comprises retail investors.

Datuk Yusli Mohamed Yusoff, chairman of PMB Investment’s parent company Pelaburan Mara Bhd, was also present at the press conference. He said during times of economic crisis, investors tend to prefer Islamic syariah funds due to its more conservative and stringent requirements.

“PMB Investment’s focus is on Islamic syariah funds. We are banking [on the fact that] the growth will be bigger than conventional funds. If you look at the basic principles of Islamic finance, there is more risk management built into the criteria in Islamic finance products.

“Under Islamic finance, certain activities aren’t allowed. For example, gambling, or things which are more speculative [in nature].

“By its nature, syariah products can be a lot more conservative. Under today’s uncertain global economic scenario, we expect conservative investments to be able to perform better and syariah investments should perform better than conventional investments,” said Yusli.

This article first appeared in digitaledge Daily, on September 11, 2015.