Press Release

JCR-VIS reaffirms Fund Stability Rating of Askari Sovereign Yield Enhancer

Karachi, December 30, 2016: JCR-VIS Credit Rating Company Limited (JCR-VIS) has reaffirmed Fund Stability Rating of Askari Sovereign Yield Enhancer (ASYE) at ‘A+(f)’ (Single A Plus (f)). The previous rating action was announced on December 31, 2016.

ASYE operates as an open end Income fund with the aim of generating higher returns in comparison to bank deposits by investing in a portfolio of sovereign and banking sector fixed income instruments and deposits. As per the offering document, the fund is required to invest at least 70% of net assets in government securities. Similarly, the fund must maintain at least 10% of its assets in cash or cash equivalents which includes government securities with a maturity of less than 90 days. On average basis (month-end averages), approximately three-fourth of the fund was deployed in T-bills and PIBs during FY16.

Weighted Average Maturity (WAM) of the net assets and duration of the portfolio are capped at 4 years and 3 years respectively. The same remained compliant with the established limits during FY16 and have trended downwards towards the end of the year. Credit risk is considered manageable since minimum rating of instruments is restricted at A- or higher.

Net assets of the fund exhibited sizeable increase to Rs. 1.5b (FY15: Rs. 918m) at end-FY16 on the back of higher associate investments; fund size amounted to Rs. 655.9m at end-November 2016. Performance of the fund improved with ASYE ranked highest among its peers during FY16.

For further information on this rating announcement, please contact the undersigned (Ext: 207) or Mr. Javed Callea (Ext: 201) at 021-35311861-70 or fax to 021-35311873.

Jamal Abbas Zaidi
Advisor

Applicable Rating Criteria: Methodology - Fund Stability Ratings (February 2012)
http://jcrvis.com.pk/Images/FSRMeth-201202.pdf

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