Head of Centras Securities says the first year of working of mutual funds founded by the company is successful

/INTERFAX-KAZAKHSTAN, Almaty, February 1, 06/ - Eldar Abdrazakopv general director of Centras Securities an investment portfolio management company considers successful the activity of mutual funds (MF), founded by the company one year ago. "As the whole it was successful", - Abdrazakov said commenting on Kaznacheistvo the first unit fund in Kazakhstan. Profitability of Kaznacheistvo fund for the past 12 months totaled 13.37% APR, at that, major objects of its assets investing were government securities of Kazakhstan, as well as foreign countries, corporate bonds, and money market instruments. One more advantage of mutual fund is possibility of depositors' leaving the fund any time. Abdrazakov says at present the company controls four MFs with total volume of assets of KZT1.7 bn. (current 132.08/$1), total number of fund holders in which exceeds 200. At the same time, the company's head says participants of this market will have to make "much efforts, to make MF's services the public product". Bakhytzhan Kapyshev president of Central securities depository JSC says in order to solve this problem it's necessary to expand geography of rendering these services. "Unfortunately, at present coverage of population by fund products is narrow. According to statistics, about 95% of depositors are Almaty inhabitants. So it's necessary to carry out the work in this direction altogether", - he said. Timur Isatayev chairman of Executive committee of ATFBank JSC said for banks fund holders were "very interesting group of clients". Thus, for example, ATFBank, he said, "is interested in expansion of cross- sales, first of all, while crediting on the guarantee of fund, which are at present liquid financial instruments". Abdrazakov says at present market participants "still have some questions concerning legislation, which demand solution". In particular, he considers "illogical" the prohibition for purchasing stakes by state officials, "because management of stakes is a more ideal form for assets investment by a state official, than his participation in any business- projects". Abdrazakov also considers inefficient prohibition for foundation of daughter companies by mutual funds. Besides, he says at present for MF "as regards legislation the corresponding registration of ownership rights has not been worked out entirely". [2006-02-02]