Media Release

September 3, 2010: The Trinidad and Tobago Unit Trust Corporation will open the doors to its newest Customer Service Centre (CSC) at One Woodbrook Place in St James on September 27, 2010.

The addition of this new full-service CSC will complement the recent opening of the UTC’s Movietowne location. Operations at the Westmoorings location will cease on September 22 and regular customers to that CSC now have a choice of two locations in West Trinidad.

“We are very excited about the opening of this new Customer Service Centre especially as we seek to reinforce our presence in West Trinidad and extend our services to the widest possible range of clientele. Our strategic vision is to focus on the individual needs and risk profile of our customers and work with them to create a customised and diversified investment portfolio. Our team at the new CSC, and indeed across our entire CSC network is committed to ensuring that all our customers, ranging from the very savvy customer to the first-time investor, are able to achieve their financial goals”, explains Ms Eutrice Carrington, UTC’s Chief Executive Officer (Ag).

The new CSC also offers secure parking facilities, and will also house the UTC’s second Quick Link Centre, which provides customers with a single platform for accessing the UTC’s electronic services. Customers will have the opportunity to learn how they can use these services to have greater control over their financial investments. The UTC’s first Quick Link Centre is located at the Port of Spain CSC.

Mr Ruben McSween, UTC’s Vice President, Customer Service Centres is confident that customers will benefit greatly from the new location.

“At the UTC, we strive to meet our customers’ expectations and this new location offers our full array of services, including the buying and selling of units, a Bureau de Change facility, as well as providing customers with the opportunity to manage their investments via electronic touch points, such as UTC U-Online and UTC Visa Debit Cards,” he said.

The CSC will open from Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm.

The UTC, which in November will celebrate 28 years of providing trusted financial services to over 520,000 customers, now has 11 CSCs across Trinidad and Tobago, and continues to provide investment solutions catering to the specific needs of the individual investor, as well as financial planning and investment advice.

Contact
Ms Danielle Jones
Asst. Vice President Group Corporate Communications
(868) 624-8648 Ext – 8121 or (868) 497-4747

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. 

Read More

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

March 11, 2010: Matura Beach is one of the world’s most important nesting beaches for the critically endangered leatherback sea turtles, with over 5,000 nests per year. And with turtle nesting season officially beginning on March 1, 2010, a team from the Trinidad and Tobago Unit Trust Corporation (UTC) joined Nature Seekers and other volunteers to assist in the annual beach clean-up efforts on February 28. Read More

March 1, 2010: For the year ending December 31, 2009, customers of the Trinidad and Tobago Unit Trust Corporation (UTC) have received over TT$700 Million in distributions despite historically low interest rates and weak equity markets. Existing and new UTC customers have reciprocated and reinvested in the UTC suite of mutual funds over TTD 2.8 Billion, a record net inflow. The UTC customer base also increased by over 20,000 to stand at a current total of over 521,000.  Read More