Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc, a member of the Standard Bank Group is offering for sale 10,000,000 units of N100 each, issued at part of the Stanbic IBTC money market funds (“SIMM”) and 10,000,000 units of N1 each at N100 per units of the Stanbic IBTC Bond Fund (“Sibond”).

The SIMM and Sibond funds opened on Monday 16 November 2009 as the Stanbic IBTC Group has taken another step towards helping investors build a portfolio of financial instruments and securities to hedge against the current economic slowdown. The offer for the SIMM was open for 5 days and closed on Friday 20 November 2009, whilst the Sibond will close on Wednesday 23 December 2009.

The funds, to be managed by Stanbic IBTC Asset Management Limited, were unveiled in Lagos recently at the completion Board meeting, which was attended by the relevant stakeholders including the Securities & Exchange Commission, PHB Capital & Trust Limited (Trustees to the funds), First Registrars Nigeria Limited (Registrars to the Offer) and Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc (Issuing house and receiving bank).

Chris Newson, CEO, Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc, said investors will benefit from the growth of these funds because the funds will be invested in instruments that will ensure return on investment. “Stanbic IBTC’s expertise and experience in Asset/Wealth management and corporate and investment banking garnered over many years, in addition to Standard Bank’s rich heritage in guiding investment decision thereby ensuring that subscribers derive value from them”, he added.

The fund, he added, also enables individual and corporate investors invest in a diversified portfolio of fixed income securities, with the overall aim of being to achieve competitive returns on the assets while safeguarding capital, by investing in a diversified portfolio of high quality bonds of government, supranational and corporate issuers, including federal government bonds, state government bonds, corporate bonds, Eurobonds and other high yielding. Fixed income securities.

On the other hand, the SIMM will invest in a wide range of very liquid short term money market instruments such as Guaranteed Commercial Papers, Banker’s Acceptance, Term Deposit among others, with financial institutions rated “A” and above in Nigeria.

Prior to the introduction of the two new funds, Stanbic IBTC Asset Management Limited already had under its management three mutual funds. They are the Stanbic IBTC Nigeria Equity Fund, which is currently Nigeria’s largest mutual funds; the Stanbic IBTC Ethical Fund, Nigeria’s first socially responsible quoted mutual fund, which allows subscribers to make profitable long-term investments without compromising their religious beliefs and or principles, and the Stanbic IBTC Guaranteed investment fund, a mutual fund that guarantees principal investments after holding the instrument for a minimum of three months.

The Stanbic IBTC Group has managed funds on behalf of pension schemes retirement benefit plans and high net worth individual for close to 2 decades. Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc is a full service universal bank with a clear focus on three main business banking pillars corporate and investment banking, personal and business banking wealth management which leverage on its industry expertise and international presence in 18 African countries.