Sagicor Select Growth record best ever performance

Investors in one of Sagicor’s Select Growth Fund have been rewarded after it recorded the best-ever financial performance in its 18-year history, despite the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic placed on financial markets.

Chairman of Sagicor Financial Incorporated (SFI) Dr Patricia Downes-Grant announced on Monday that for the financial year ended September 30, 2021, the Select Growth Fund’s year-on-year return stood at 16.4 per cent, the top one-year performance return since the fund’s inception in 2004.

While not specifying the level of reward for the investors, Dr Downes-Grant said in her 2021 report that the historic performance of the Select Growth Fund was “driven by exposures to international equities and continued momentum from the best-in-class performance recorded for the year ended December 31, 2020”.

She also linked it to the three-year average calendar annual return of 9.9 per cent.

The chairman further stated that the net asset value for 2021 increased to $1.77 up from $1.52 in 2020 and financial investments increased 24 per cent from $52 million to $64.5 million.

She said that at the same time, equities remained the dominant asset class representing 78 per cent of the fund.

In its market analysis, SFI noted that the Select Growth Fund benefited from “unprecedented liquidity injected into the global financial system by both monetary and fiscal stimulus policies”, which narrowed credit spreads and kept borrowing costs low, benefiting all segments of the equity asset class.

Dr Downes-Grant reported that the firm’s other investment funds, the Sagicor Global Balanced Fund and Sagicor Preferred Income Fund, recorded returns of 11.7 per cent and 2.0 per cent, respectively.

She said the positive returns recorded by all three funds was in line with the anticipated rebound in global economic activity following the -3.1 per cent fallout in 2020 as a result of the pandemic.

“Notwithstanding the rally in major indices through to early September, market sentiment was tempered by downside risks of resurgent health concerns, supply chain disruptions and price pressures,” she reported.

“In this context, for the financial year ended September 30, 2021, the Sagicor Mutual Fund continued momentum from the fourth quarter of 2020 and benefited from diversified investments across developed and emerging markets, buoyed by strong corporate earnings and improving economic fundamentals,” Dr Downes-Granted announced.
(EJ)