Last Updated on Thursday, 1 October, 2020 at 1:57 pm by Andre Camilleri
APS Funds SICAV p.l.c. held its 12th Annual General Meeting on 1 October 2020. In view of the COVID-19 pandemic and related guidelines issued by local health authorities, in particular Legal Notice 288 of 2020, the Directors opted to hold the meeting behind closed doors.
Mr Tony Mejlaq, the Chairman of the Board, prepared an address to the shareholders which is available electronically for public viewing through a link found on www.apsfunds.com.mt. There are also two presentations available on the Company’s website covering markets and fund’s performance, one in Maltese and one in English, delivered respectively by David Lanzon, Portfolio Manager at APS Bank p.l.c. and Josef Portelli, Managing Director at ReAPS Asset Management Limited. ReAPS Asset Management Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of APS Bank p.l.c. and manages APS Funds SICAV p.l.c.
APS Funds delivered a positive performance during 2019. The Accumulator Shares of the Income Fund rose by 8.23% whilst the Class C Accumulator Shares of the Regular Income Ethical Fund and the Diversified Bond Fund increased by 11.15% and 9.52% respectively. The global pandemic, however, has had a negative impact on both international and local asset markets with the same share classes of the respective funds above falling by 3.43%, 1.91% and 1.38% during the first six months of this year. Throughout the year 2019 and the first half of 2020, the distributor share- classes of all three funds paid dividends on their appointed distribution dates.
Over the year ended 31 December 2019 total assets under management in APS Funds SICAV p.l.c. grew from €149.9 mio to €170.9 mio to then fall to €167.6 mio as at 30 June 2020. Despite the challenging economic and market conditions, it is the expressed intention of the Board and that of APS Bank p.l.c. to keep growing the APS Funds business. In fact a new Pound Sterling share class of the Diversified Bond Fund was launched in June 2020 and a fourth Sub-Fund, named Global Equity Fund, was launched only very recently. This Sub-Fund’s remit is to invest in a diversified portfolio of international equities.
The Annual General Meeting also saw the reappointment of Messrs Tony Mejlaq, Joseph Portelli and Etienne Borg Cardona as Directors of APS Funds SICAV p.l.c., and the re-appointment of Deloitte Audit Ltd as auditors of the Company. Furthermore, an extraordinary resolution was proposed to the shareholders, for the Company’s Memorandum and Articles of Association to be amended to incorporate changes relating to smoother management of the Company and engagement with shareholders. However, since one of the necessary thresholds required for this resolution was not achieved, a remote Extraordinary General Meeting will be held on the 30th October to consider this said resolution.
