Barita Capital Growth Fund

2021 – not great for Unit Trusts

March 11, 2022 by IC Insider.com

2021 was not a great year for equity linked Unit Trust schemes, with the highest returns being 10.51 percent and the next best was 8.74 percent that is not bad when viewed against the Jamaica Stock Exchange Composite Index in 2021 with a rise of a mere 2.2 percent.

Scotia Investments Capital Growth Fund was tops in 2021 following years of being tops in the past.

Scotia Investments one of the perennial top performers in past years, delivered another industry-beating best performance in 2021, based on information published just before the last day of the year with a return of 10.51 percent, followed by Sigma Equity with a return of 8.74 percent. VM Wealth US dollar fund ended with 11.43 percent but the Jamaican Equity fund ended with just 3.7 percent.
JMMB Group’s Capital Growth Fund returned 5.09 percent whilst its Optimum Capital Fund rose 6.86 percent. NCB Capital Market posted gains of 6.24 percent, Proven Investments Select Equity returned 6.11 percent gains for their clients, why JN Mutual Global Fund had returns of 4.56 percent and Barita Investments could only manage a return of 5.09 percent.
Cumax Wealth Management Jamaican equity fund delivered a negative return of 3.16 percent for the year.
Investors should not only focus on recent performance but how well the funds have done over a lon=ger period. For the 5 years to the end of 2018, the three best performing Funds were Sagicor’s Sigma Equity, Scotia’s Premium Growth and Barita’s Capital Growth, for the 10 years to 2018, the same three Funds have been the top performers.

Barita profit jumps but 2019 to be big

December 4, 2018 by IC Insider.com

Barita last traded on the JSE at $29.

Barita Investments reported profit of $374 million after tax for the year to September, a rise of 84 percent over the 2017 results but final quarter profit after tax surged 315 percent, to $193 million.
The September quarter benefited from strong increase in net interest income moving from $69 million to $117 million and from $287 million to $424 million for the full year, even as interest rates declined sharply during the year. Gains on foreign exchange swelled earnings in this category pushing it to $145 million in the quarter from just $12 million in 2017 and to $188 million from $45 million for the fiscal year. Gain on sale of investments came in well below the level in 2017 at $25 million for the quarter down from $62 million in the quarter and from $259 million it fell to $136 million for the fiscal year. Even as realized investment gains fell, unrealised gains rose by $362 million for the year, bringing unrealized gains to $1.1 billion and shareholders’ equity to $3.26 billion.
At the close of the quarter the company had 3.3 billion in marketable securities up from $2.49 billion in 2017. Since the end of the quarter, the exchange rate that was at JS$134.65 at the close of September and $130.39 at June, is now down to just over $127 and that could mean a big drop in the value of the US dollar-based portfolio. With the movement of stock prices particularly NCB Financial and a few others, gains in investments which will now all be reported through the regular profit and loss statement will most likely wipe out the FX losses and leave a nice surplus, unless changes for the worse were to occur in the next few weeks before the end of the calendar year.

NCB stock should add gains for Barita in 2019 fiscal year.

During this year, the majority shares switched hands with Cornerstone majority owners of Myer Fletcher Merchant Bank acquiring 75 percent ownership. Barita was founded by Rita Humphreys-Lewin and quietly built into a force to be reckoned with, within the investment banking arena. The brokerage house has been seen as conservative, but observers within the financial sector are of the view that those days are over, at least for now. As a result, investors have been piling into the company’s stock as they see swelling earnings ahead. The stock which was on the IC Insider.com buy rated list for a long time finally exited recently, but there seems to be a longer road ahead before the gains are over.
Barita has so much potential for growth but was being managed in a conservative manner. Margin accounts, a big source of added revenues was not being pushed, Unit Trust was marketed more as a take it or leave it manner, than a more aggressive approach to pull in many more customers. Not even the stock market, the company best known for, has the potential been fully taken advantage of. Hopefully, the new majority owners will take a more aggressive approach, especially in light of an improving economy and one that could lead to long term growth for the economy, stocks and unit trust investing. There are some hopeful signs. One is a more aggressive dividend policy that will enhance the value of the stock. A more aggressive staff recruitment is under way that will modify the culture and drive business going forward.
IC Insider.com understands that Barita is in the process of acquiring an investment portfolio with assets of more than $10 billion from a large financial institution that they have had a close relationship with for decades. More efficient management of some resources is likely to add significant income to the operations in a full year, estimated by IC Insider.com to be around $100 million per year, not to mention the added income from the investment funds being acquired, that should contribute around $75 million in net revenues per year. But there is more, Cornerstone successfully closed a $5 billion bond issue last week at 7.25 percent per annum. Word is that the vast majority of the proceeds is slated to be used by Barita and will most likely to be invested across a wide spectrum of the investments within Barita and this could add a great deal of income and profit to the operations. With the chnage in accounting policy relating to how investment gains or losses are reported and the added income from the various changes and expansion being undertaken 2019 profit should exceed $1 billion, the first time that this nbenchmark would be acheived.
When all is said and done, the fixed income portfolio is the bread and butter earner but in this environment of a bullish stock market, it is ability of the management to take advantage of the opportunities that the market will throw up that will be the real driver of the company’s stock price in the short to medium term.
Some investors are speculating that the company could be going after a rights issue soon which could absorb much of the inflows from the just concluded bond issue. IC Insider.com had reported previously that the stocks is an ideal candidate for a split. With the current price now at $29 and the prospects looking very bright, a split seems very likely in 2019.

Persons or entities associated with IC Insider hold shares in Barita Investments.

Filed Under: Company News, Company Results Tagged With: Barita Capital Growth Fund, Barita Investments, Emerging markets, Jamaica Stock Exchange, NCB Financial Group

Sagicor Fund is Jamaica’s top unit trust

October 22, 2018 by IC Insider.com

Sagicor Equity linked Unit Trust delivered almost 600% gain in 10 years.

Sagicor Equity Unit Trust is Jamaica’s leading unit trust equity portfolio for the past six and ten years periods. In second place is Scotia Unit Trust, followed by Barita, data compiled by IC Insider.com shows.
For the past 6 years, Sagicor delivered gains of 339 percent and 581 percent over the past 10 years with nearly three months to go for the period. Scotia Unit Trust had gains of 237 percent for the near 6 year period and 429 percent for the 10 year, period with just under three months of the period to go. Barita is third with 341 for the near ten years and 209 for the 6 years period.
The Jamaica Stock Exchange main market gained 31 percent to Friday October 12 and the Junior Market 23 percent and the year still has more than 2 months to go. At look at the unit trust performance as disclosed in Friday’s Financial Gleaner, dated October 12, shows, Barita Unit Trust leading all others with an increase of 29.77 percent followed by Victoria Mutual Fund with a return of 25.28 percent and Sagicor coming in third at 18.95 percent.

Scotia Investments Capital growth Fund tops in 2017.

With interest rates at the lowest levels on record and the increased risk for ordinary Jamaicans to invest in US dollars with two ways movement of the local currency, more persons are looking at the stock market as a viable alternative. Not everyone is equipped to buy stocks directly. Equity based unit trust schemes are useful alternatives for investors to look at if they are not comfortable with investing directly in stocks listed on the local market. These schemes invest in a variety of stocks and keep some funds liquid to be able to meet persons cashing out. This latter factor alone usually ensures that unit trust will find it tough to beat the market. But that should not be of major concern to many investors who would not be able to benefit from the power that stocks can deliver to one’s portfolio. Put another way if an individual investors decided that they are not conversant with stocks and therefore invested their funds in fixed interest securities at say 5 percent per annum but got say 20 percent from a stock fund as opposed to 30 percent from the stock market they would still be far better off than not owning some instruments that are exposed to the stock market.
One period’s performance is not the best guide to selecting a unit trust to invest in. In 2017, Scotia Premium Growth Fund recorded gains of more than 37 percent for their investors to be the number 1 performer, after rising 25 percent for 2016. The Scotia Fund, displaced Barita Capital Growth Fund, the 2016 front runner that ended at

number 6 in 2017, while still delivering a 21.5 percent return, down slightly from 26.7 percent in 2016. Funds delivering good performance over longer periods are far better guide in selecting a unit trust for investment.
Over the past 5 years to 2017, no one unit Trust has been consistently the top performer. Barita has held number one spot in 2013 with 11.79 percent, they were number 2 in 2014 with 9.13 percent, three in 2015 with 51.27 percent and number one in 2016 with 22 percent but fell to 6th position in 2017 and are now number 1 in 2018. Scotia Premium Growth were no 1 in 2017, number 2 in 2016 with an increase of 26 percent, number 2 in 2015 with a 62.7 percent increase, 3 in 2014 with an increase of 8.3 percent, 3 in 2013 with a decline of 3.8 percent and are now 4 in 2018 to date. Sigma Unit Trust was number one in 2014 with a gain of 12.6 percent and in 2015 with 89 percent, number 4 in 2016 with negative 2.7 percent growth, second place in in 2017 and number 3 in 2018 so far.