UTC plans $56 million bonus payout

The Board of Directors of the Unit Trust Corporation (UTC) yesterday agreed to make a special bonus distribution of $56 million to unitholders on record as at August 31, 2003. This distribution will be paid out of retained earnings which as at the end of June 2003 amounted to $261.2 million. According to Hubert Alleyne, chairman, UTC, under section 25 of the Unit Trust Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago Act 1981, the UTC is mandated in respect of the First Unit Scheme (Growth and Income Fund) to distribute to unitholders not less than 90 percent of income after interest and other expenses charged for the year. With respect to the other schemes, which include the TT dollar money market fund and the US dollar money market fund, the same section provides that a percentage of income to be distributed to unitholders, after the payment of interest and other expenses, will be such as the Board may determine.

Clarry Benn, executive director, UTC, said in determining the amount to be allocated to each fund for distribution, the Board took into consideration the age of each fund together with its size and the number of unitholders with a definite bias in favour of the higher risked equity-based funds. The First Unit Scheme (Growth and Income Fund) was allocated $32 million; the Second Unit Scheme (TT dollar money market fund) - $21 million; the Universal Retirement Fund (URF) - $2 million and the US dollar money market fund - $1 million. Over 326,702 registered customers who control close to 419,182 accounts are expected to benefit from this special bonus distribution. Benn assured that all unitholders on the register of the Corporation as at August 31, 2003, will be eligible for the bonus distribution which will be directly determined by the size of unitholding in each of the four funds. Unitholders’ accounts in the four funds will be credited in the month of September and statements showing the distribution will be mailed to unitholders from September 1 to December 1, 2003. “This bonus distribution is the first of its kind to be paid by the UTC and underscores the Corporation’s commitment to the unitholders that they share in the financial success of the UTC,” Benn said. Alleyne added that this payment does not constitute an act of generosity on the part of the Board and management. “It merely keeps faith with the intention and vision of the founders of this institution, whose aim it was to design and establish an organisation that would work for the benefit of unitholders — its owners.”