Global Investment Opportunities for Malaysians

Have you ever thought of expanding the likes of your investments to countries like Mexico or Nigeria?

Most Malaysians are investing into limited types of investments mostly in local stocks, properties and single unit trust funds. Little did they know that an undiversified investment portfolio creates higher risk to the investors. When that particular investment devalues, they will lose the same proportion as the underlying asset.

Recently, global investment platforms have been introduced to Labuan, one of Malaysia’s Federal Territories. Labuan is a well known Offshore Financial Centre offering international financial and business services via Labuan IBFC since the 1990s. This platform offers global investment opportunities to Malaysians and grants them access to the worlds’ largest fund houses such as Blackrock Merrill Lynch, J P Morgan Asset Management, HSBC bank and many others. However, due to the level of sophistication, these investments are not widely available to the general public. Therefore, Bank Negara Malaysia specifically approved the Licensed Financial Advisers to provide these services to selected sophisticated investors.

I strongly believe that the introduction of this platform is beneficial to Malaysians as it allows investors to further diversify their assets to multiple sectors (such as agriculture, natural resources, technology, healthcare), multiple geographical regions (such as Eastern Europe, Latin America, African nations, Asia) and to reputable global fund managers (such as Blackrock Merrill Lynch, J P Morgan Asset Management, Fidelity, HSBC bank). Many of these global funds were not available to Malaysians previously. But with the recent liberalization of the financial services industry, Bank Negara have taken positive steps to allow sophisticated investors to diversify their investment portfolio using only approved investment platforms based in Labuan.

Diversification allows the clients to spread their risks through a portfolio of global funds managed by a pool of reputable global fund managers. With a well diversified investment portfolio, the risk exposure can be better managed according to the client’s risk profile. This gives the client a peace of mind even during bad economical times or recessionary periods. This is crucial because there are some financial objectives that you can’t afford to risk (such as your retirement and children education plans). These investments will be held in strong foreign currencies such a British Pounds (GBP) or US Dollars (USD) which will give clients multiple currency holdings to minimize speculations.

Through this platform, clients are now able to gain exposure to global investment funds even with a smaller retail sum. Minimum lump sum investment is now available for as low as GBP 10,000 or GBP 300 per month for regular saving with a minimum term of 10 years. Previously, reputable global investment funds were only made available to high net worth individuals through their offshore bank account with a minimum sum of at least couple of millions.

To understand more on the above global investment opportunities, you can talk to any Bank Negara Licensed Financial Adviser Representative.

Lastly, I wish you and your families a healthy start to the New Year ahead!