The Pakistan Credit Rating Agency Limited
10-Mar-21
Analyst
Afnan Iqbal
afnan.iqbal_old@pacra.com_old
+92-42-35869504
www.pacra.com
Applicable Criteria
Related Research
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PACRA Maintains Stability Rating of NIT Money Market Fund
| Rating Type | Stability Rating | |
|
Current (10-Mar-21 ) |
Previous (16-Oct-20 ) |
|
| Action | Maintain | Maintain |
| Long Term | AAA(f) | AAA(f) |
| Short Term | - | - |
| Outlook | Stable | Stable |
| Rating Watch | - | - |
The rating reflects the strong strength of the fund's credit and interest rate risk profile. The fund's good credit quality and sound liquidity profile emanates primarily from its mandate to invest in government securities and other low duration avenues such as bank placement's and ensuring low exposure to interest rate risk. As per the authorized investment policy, time to maturity of any asset should not be more than 6 months and Weighted average time to maturity of net assets should not be more than 90 days. At end Dec'20, ~98% of fund's assets were allocated to banks rated 'AA+' and 'AAA'. Average duration of the fund remained within 45 days. Fund's unit holding pattern is highly concentrated with top 10 investors representing 68% of the net assets.
Going forward, the fund intends to maintain its asset allocation towards higher rated and secured investment avenues. Material changes in the fund's asset allocation strategy, impacting its credit quality and/or exposure to interest rate risk, would affect the rating.
About
the Entity
National Investment Trust Limited was established in 1962 as an unquoted public limited company and pioneer of domestic mutual fund industry. The Company’s Board of Directors currently comprises ten board members out of which nine are non-executive. Mr. Adnan Afridi, CEO/MD who joined in Feb'19 holds profound experience in the financial services and capital markets. Mr. Manzoor Ahmed is the COO and has a successful track record of managing the operations and investment portfolio of the Company. They are supported by a team of qualified and experienced professionals.
The Company is currently one of the largest asset management company in Pakistan with a portfolio of twelve open-end funds which includes two non-public funds namely NIT-SEF and NIT-EMOF, two voluntary pension schemes and an exchange traded fund. The assets under management of the Company stood at ~PKR 94,578mln (including SEF & EMOF) end-Dec'20.