The Unit Trust Corporation Global Balanced Fund Ltd (UTC GBFL), launched its first retail Mutual Fund in St Lucia yesterday, which is designed to facilitate wealth creation opportunities and promote investment literacy regionally.
UTC GBFL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Trinidad and Tobago Unit Trust Corporation, is an investment company incorporated in St Lucia to operate as a Collective Investment Scheme (CIS) or Mutual Fund in the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU).
At the launch UTC’s executive director, Nigel Edwards said the corporation has grown from a team of 50 enterprising and passionate pioneers to over 500 strong, serving over 543,000 unitholders and managing nine proprietary funds, with Funds Under Management of US$3.6 billion.
“Along the way, we have faced many challenges and we have also recorded many milestones, always with a spirit of enabling progress towards financial autonomy through the provision of quality investment opportunities and financial education,” Edwards explained.
The executive director said the UTC GBFL is the first retail CIS available to investors across the ECCU.
He noted that St Lucia is the initial jurisdiction where the GBFL will be sold.
“As such, I particularly want to stress that we have created this product with the everyday man in mind, to bring financial independence and financial freedom within reach for as wide a cross-section of the population as possible, and in so doing to lift the prospects of the nation as a whole,” Edwards stressed.
He outlined that the financial institution’s template for successful management of investment portfolios has been honed over decades of experience, and it can now bring that structure and expertise to bear, for the benefit of St Lucia and the ECCU.
“Deepening the capital market and developing new sources of capital is a necessary link to national and regional development. Frankly, beyond the commercial benefits, pooling capital in this way is an absolute requirement for us to solve some of the infrastructure and other issues that face our island nations,” he emphasized.
According to Edwards, this is only made possible through building and nurturing strong relationships.
Also speaking at the event was the regional CIS Manager for UTC GBFL Omar Burch-Smith, who gave insight on how the investment foundation was built in the ECCU.
Burch-Smith said the framers of the ECCU when they signed the agreement establishing the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank on July 5, 1983, would have envisioned creating an ecosystem that would provide economic stability with a stable currency, an avenue for wealth creation through savings and a robust banking system that would serve the needs of all.
Further, he said the Eastern Caribbean Securities Market, which was established almost 18 years later, aimed to build on that foundation.
“This saw the establishment of the Eastern Caribbean Securities Exchange that would provide an efficient market for regional governments and companies to raise capital that would foster further growth and development of our economies while also giving our citizens and institutions an avenue for investing,” Burch-Smith underscored.
Along with the ECSE, he said, was the establishment of the Eastern Caribbean Securities Regulatory Commission to provide the necessary regulatory oversight to protect investors and the integrity of the market.
