The Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion (UTC) has seen a sig­nif­i­cant drop in in­come in its 2024 fi­nan­cial year, but its lead­er­ship has as­sured unithold­ers that the mu­tu­al fund in­sti­tu­tion is still on strong foot­ing.

At the UTC's an­nu­al meet­ing at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, the in­sti­tu­tion's chair Jo-Anne Julien con­firmed the UTC saw in­come drop 67 per cent year on year from 2023 to 2024. The UTC record­ed in­come of $19 mil­lion in its 2024 fi­nan­cial year com­pared to $57 mil­lion for the year end­ed De­cem­ber 31, 2023.

"Look­ing at our fi­nan­cial per­for­mance, it is al­so im­por­tant to ad­dress the fall in net in­come for fis­cal 2024 com­pared to 2023. This re­sult does not re­flect op­er­a­tional weak­ness but rather the im­pact of broad­er mar­ket con­di­tions and strate­gic pol­i­cy de­ci­sions," said Julien.

"In 2024, the glob­al and re­gion­al eco­nom­ic land­scapes were in­flu­enced by per­sis­tent in­fla­tion, geopo­lit­i­cal volatil­i­ty and struc­tur­al changes, re­sult­ing from the post-pan­dem­ic re­cov­ery. These head­winds have test­ed even the most re­silient in­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing those right here in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Yet still, UTC has re­mained steady, fo­cussed on its found­ing mis­sion to ex­pand ac­cess to in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties for all, em­pow­er­ing in­di­vid­u­als to build long-term fi­nan­cial se­cu­ri­ty."

The UTC's ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, Nigel Ed­wards, how­ev­er em­pha­sised that this did not af­fect the val­ue avail­able to unithold­ers.

Ed­wards said, “It is im­por­tant to em­pha­sise that this (re­duced net in­come) is not a re­flec­tion of di­min­ished val­ue for our unithold­ers. We made a de­lib­er­ate choice to in­crease dis­tri­b­u­tions to you, our in­vestors. Dis­tri­b­u­tion to unithold­ers to­talled near­ly $495 mil­lion, a sig­nif­i­cant 60.3 per cent in­crease over 2023.”

The UTC stat­ed it gen­er­at­ed $1.045 bil­lion in to­tal in­vest­ment in­come, un­der­pinned by dis­ci­plined as­set al­lo­ca­tion and strate­gic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

Ed­wards said, "The TT Dol­lar In­come Fund dis­trib­uted $279.4 mil­lion, up 78.2 per cent, while the US Dol­lar In­come Fund dis­trib­uted $129.5 mil­lion, re­flect­ing an 89.2 per cent in­crease over the pre­vi­ous year."

He ex­plained that there were sev­er­al oth­er in­vest­ment funds un­der the UTC that were do­ing well.

"One such is the Ca­lyp­so Macro In­dex Fund, which is the first of its kind in Trinidad and To­ba­go and pro­vid­ed in­vestors with unique ex­po­sure to a di­ver­si­fied port­fo­lio. As of year-end 2024, the Ca­lyp­so Macro In­dex Fund man­aged as­sets to­talling $569.42 mil­lion. No­tably, it is set to ma­ture this year, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for both the fund and the cor­po­ra­tion as we de­liv­er on our promise to re­turn val­ue to unithold­ers."

UTC chair Julien said the cor­po­ra­tion was com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing val­ue to unithold­ers. Re­view­ing the year-to-date fi­nan­cial per­for­mance, she stat­ed, “The cor­po­ra­tion sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­creased dis­tri­b­u­tions to unithold­ers, re­turn­ing cap­i­tal to those we are man­dat­ed to serve, even amid chal­leng­ing mar­ket con­di­tions.”