Cyprus investment company assets up 3.6% to EUR 383 mln by end-2009

Cyprus Investment company assets showed a very small increase for the whole of 2009, showing once again that the portfolio mix of the 14 companies listed on the Cyprus Stock Exchange is concentrated on other investments, rather than direct exposure to stocks.
The total assets of the 14 investment companies listed on the CSE increased by 3.6% year-on-year to EUR 382.97 mln end of 2009 from EUR 369.59 mln end of 2008, according to an exclusive survey carried out by the Financial Mirror.
The total is well above the lowest point reached end of March 2009 when total assets fell to EUR 355 mln, but is down sharply from the end of September 2009 high of EUR 420 mln, which means portfolio fund managers did not manage to take advantage of the summer rally and kept their positions the same.
During the year, the list declined as Athena was successfully taken over by Hellenic Bank and delisted from the CSE, while Stario and Empire were acquired and shifted category. Elma, which is the holding company of Dodonis and Jupiter has been excluded since the company has also shifted category to the Alternative market.

DEMETRA THE LARGEST
Demetra remained the largest fund with EUR 185.5 mln in assets, diversified between equity, cash and property investments in Cyprus and abroad. Trading at EUR 0.33 per share on the CSE, the discount to NAV of EUR 0.9081 as at January 2010 widened to 64%.
Cytrustees, majority owned by Bank of Cyprus Group was the second largest fund with total assets of EUR 37.9 mln. Trading at EUR 0.64 on the CSE, the discount to NAV of CYTR was 38%.
Interfund is the third largest with total assets of EUR 34.4 mln while Jupiter with total assets of EUR 30.8 mln and Apollo with total assets of EUR 23.5 mln complete the big five list.
It should be noted that the Financial Mirror survey ignores dividend payments made by companies in the NAV performance calculations, eventhough such dividend payments result in a reduction of a company’s NAV.