eUnittrust - MY

Unit Trusts or more commonly known in the United States as mutual funds, are a form of collective investment that allows investors with similar investment objectives to pool their funds to be invested in a portfolio of assets.

These portfolio may include asset classes such as:

Transferable securities;
Cash, deposits and money market instruments;
Unit/shares in collective investment schemes; and
Derivatives.
Investors or unitholders do not actually purchase the securities in the portfolio directly, rather the ownership of the fund is divided into units of entitlement. As the value of the fund increase or decrease, the corresponding value of each unit increases or decreases accordingly. The number of units held depends on the amount of money invested as well as the unit price at the time of investment.

The return on investment in unit trust, if any, is usually in the form of income distribution and capital appreciation, derived from the underlying investment of the unit trust fund. Each unit earns an equal return, which is determined by the quantum of distribution as well as the capital appreciation. Example, if income distribution is 1 sen per unit, each unit held by an investor will be entitled for income distribution of 1 sen.