SUN LIFE Investment Management and Trust Corp. (SLIMTC) expects its assets under management (AUM) to reach P440 billion to P450 billion this year as it plans to launch retail products.
“The bulk of it will come from the insurance assets. But for retail alone… we’re launching the unit investment trust funds (UITFs) by April. We have them already, but for institutional clients. So, we’re targeting an ambitious goal of at least P10 billion in AUMs for the UITFs alone, for the year,” SLIMTC President Michael Gerard D. Enriquez told reporters on Friday.
SLIMTC’s AUMs almost doubled to around P220 billion in 2024 following the transfer of insurance assets to the trust company.
“We just completed that transfer… That’s why the AUMs significantly grew. We just had to do it in phases because the AUMs are huge. It was really mainly coming from the institutional client base,” Mr. Enriquez said.
SLIMTC also hopes to become part of the top three standalone trust corporations in the Philippine in terms of AUMs in the next few years, he added.
SLIMTC is now moving into the retail segment to complement its current offerings to institutional investors and select high net worth individuals, Mr. Enriquez said in a separate speech on Friday.
Aside from the launch of retail UITFs by next month, it is also rolling out an online platform to tap the retail segment.
“We’re excited about that because now we will have a chance to help our financial advisors expand their product suite to also offer UITFs to their individual clients. Our primary point of distribution, at least for the first few years, would be through our financial advisors. We would like to complete that product suite and for them to be able to offer a holistic solution for their clients,” Mr. Enriquez said.
Appetite for UITFs among the public has been low as consumers prefer to put their money in banks instead of investing, he said.
“I think there should be more communication and marketing towards how easy it is to invest. Accessibility now has been addressed with digital means,” Mr. Enriquez added. — AMCS
