by NUR HAZIQAH A MALEK / TMR file pix

The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) has outsourced RM114.56 billion or 14.5% of its total investment assets to external portfolio managers as end of last year.

The outsourced figure was a 9.80% increase over the RM104.37 billion given to  external portfolio managers in 2016, the retirement fund noted in a release yesterday.

The allocation is invested in both equity and fixed income instruments. EPF chairman Tan Sri Samsudin Osman said the fund will continue to outsource a portion of its funds.

“This is to suitably leverage on the knowledge and external fund managers’ skill sets that complement our own internal fund management capabilities, as we are driving towards becoming a trillion-ringgit fund,” he said the statement.

The EPF will increase its exposure by investing in alternative investments as well as infrastructure but this will be done prudently and gradually he added.

With 45% of its investment assets being Shariah-compliant, the EPF plans to grow its assets by at least RM25 billion annually on average to meet its members’ demand.

The EPF made RM53.14 billion in gross investment income or return on investment of 7.3% in 2017, the highest in its recorded history.

It also declared a dividend rate of 6.9% for its conventional savings accounts and 6.4% for Shariah saving accounts.

Its investment assets size increased by 8.25% year-on-year to RM791.48 billion as of Dec 2017, thus placing the EPF among the 10 largest sovereign funds in the world. The fund as some 14 million member contributors.

The paid RM309.98 million in management fees last year as compared with RM290.95 million in 2016.

The 6.5% increase year-on-year in management fee was mainly due to the additional outsourcing of funds to the external fund managers, the retirement fund noted.