UTC Media Centre

June 24, 2010: In accordance with section 30 (6) of the Unit Trust Corporation Trinidad and Tobago Act, 1981 (as amended) the UTC is required to submit its annual audited accounts to the Minister of Finance by April 30 of each year. This was done on April 9, 2010. Similarly, under section 30 (7) of the Act the Minister of Finance is required to lay the accounts in Parliament.

On June 24, 2010, in the weekly Post Cabinet Media Conference, the Minister of Finance made reference to the Auditor General’s Report contained in the UTC’s 2009 Annual Report. To clarify the matter, the UTC restates the Auditor General’s report found on page A33-A35 of its 2009 Annual Report as follows:

 “…the financial position of the Trinidad and Tobago Unit Trust Corporation as at 2009 December 31 and its financial performance and its cash flows for the year ended 2009 December 31 (were) in accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standards.”

The Auditor General then re-stated section 13 (3) of the Unit Trust Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago Act 1981 (as amended):

In investing in securities the Board shall not invest more than ten per cent of the funds of any one unit scheme in the purchase of securities in any one company or other corporation, nor shall the investments of all unit Schemes established by the Board include at any time more than ten per cent of the securities issued by any company or other corporation.

The Auditor General then commented that:

“7.2   It was noted that at 2009 December 31, one investment exceeded 10% of the securities issued by an entity. Note 3 to the Consolidated Financial Statements is relevant.”

To assist in further understanding of the Auditor General’s comments above, we point to the disclosure by the UTC at Note 3 to the Consolidated Financial Statements found on page A24 of the UTC 2009 Annual Report:

“The Corporation has in its portfolio a bond that was considered sovereign debt. As a result, the Corporation’s participation which was in excess of 10% of the securities issued was not considered to be in contravention of section 13 (3) of the Unit Trust Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago Act 1981. Subsequently, management recognized the facility was not a sovereign issue. The bond was restructured on December 30, 2009 and the Corporation participated in the restructured facility due in 2029. At restructuring, the Corporation’s participation continued to be in excess of 10% of the securities in issue. It is management’s expectation that the restructured facility will allow for a selling down of its participation to an amount within its statutory limit which was not previously possible.”

The statements referenced above were disclosed in the print media on April 2010 when the Corporation published its 2009 Annual Report. This information was also disclosed on the Corporation’s website,  copies of the report were made available at our Customer Service Centres and the matter was discussed at our Annual General Meeting which was held on  May 26, 2010 Annual General Meeting and  broadcast live on radio.

It should be noted that the investment in question represents 0.35 of one percent of the total assets of one scheme and 0.17 of one percent of another scheme.  This has had no adverse effect on the UTC’s Fund performance and management is seeking to regularize the matter.

AMOY CHANG FONG
CHAIRMAN

June 21, 2010: The Trinidad and Tobago Unit Trust Corporation (UTC) opened its 10^th Customer Service Centre on Monday June 14, 2010 at Movietowne, Invaders Bay, Trinidad. “UTC chose Movietowne as our customers are increasingly defining convenient locations as those that offer opportunities to access a variety of services in one location,” said Ms. Eutrice Carrington, Chief Executive Officer (Ag.) of the UTC. Read More

May 26, 2010: Investors of the Trinidad and Tobago Unit Trust Corporation (UTC) are being reminded of the advantages of a diversified portfolio. With a suite of ten funds, a multi-fund approach was demonstrated showing the additional benefits of spreading investments over a variety of funds to garner better returns. “The notion of passive diversification as a cure for investment underperformance must give way to an approach that more actively extracts value from a diversified portfolio of funds,” said Ms. Eutrice Carrington, UTC Chief Executive Officer (acting).

“The variety of UTC’s equity and income funds now offers investors additional options to improve their returns by constructing their own portfolios from UTC’s product offering,” she said at the Corporations’ May 26, 2010 Annual General Meeting at Queen’s Hall, Port of Spain. Read More

May 13, 2010: The Trinidad and Tobago Unit Trust Corporation (UTC) advises that the Trinidad leg of the UTC Ribbons of Hope 5K originally scheduled for May 15^th has been unavoidably postponed to May 29^th 2010.

The Tobago race remains unaffected and will be held on Sunday May 16^th.

UTC regrets any inconvenience caused by the postponement of the Trinidad race.

Contact:

Danielle Jones
Asst. Vice President- Group Corporate Communications
(868) 624-8648 X8121
(868) 497-4747

April 26, 2010: The Trinidad and Tobago Unit Trust Corporation published its Financial Statements for 2009 today. The Chairman’s Review of 2009 highlights the difficult market conditions that prevailed in 2009 – global interest rates were at historic low levels and stock markets also experienced record lows. By the end of the year, however, there were signs of improvements in most markets and the UTC was cautiously optimistic about future trends. Read More

April 9, 2010: The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Trinidad and Tobago Unit Trust Corporation (UTC), Ms Amoy Chang Fong, announced today that Ms. Eutrice Carrington will take over the reins of the UTC, effective 10 April 2010, until the Board completes its search to fill the Executive Director’s position, vacated by Marlon Holder.   “The Board will immediately begin to examine both internal and external candidates for the post of Executive Director of the UTC,” said Ms Chang Fong. 

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April 1, 2010: The Trinidad and Tobago Unit Trust Corporation (UTC) has again lent its support to the development of local cycling, through its $75,000 sponsorship of the Beacon Trinidad and Tobago Cycling Festival.

The UTC is the title sponsor of the new Survivor Challenge competition, which event organiser, Michael Phillips describes as “the curtain event” of the endurance races. The event will feature the largest field in the All-Star category.  The Survivor prize is contested in the first or second lap of the 30-40 lap endurance race, and is the biggest prize of all. Read More