By Ngozi Onyeakusi– Total investment in mutual funds has grown to N956.7bn as of December 6, 2019.

According to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) the value of mutual funds increased by 53.91 per cent from N621.6bn on December 28, 2018 to N956.7bn on December 6.

Mutual funds are professionally-managed investment programmes that pool money from many investors to purchase securities.

They are made up of ethical funds, equity-based funds, money market funds, bonds funds, fixed income funds, real estate investment funds and mixed funds.

Money market funds, which invest only in highly liquid instruments such as cash, cash equivalent securities and high credit rating debt-based securities with a short-term maturity less than 13 months, recorded the highest investment of N702.4bn.

Money market funds, made up of funds pooled from 19 investment schemes, accounted for 73.42 per cent of the total amount of investment in money market funds.

Money market funds offer high liquidity with a very low level of risk.

The schemes under the fund are Stanbic IBTC Money Market Fund (N324.20bn), FBN Money Market Fund (N177.54bn), United Capital Money Market Fund (N15.91bn), AIICO Money Market Fund (N974.47m), ARM Money Market Fund (N74.84bn), Meristem Money Market Fund (N1.6bn), AXA Mansard Money Market Fund (N32.20bn), Greenwich Plus Money Market Fund (N4.8bn) and Cordros Money Market Fund (N9.22bn).

Others are PACAM Money Market Fund (N698.55m), Chapel Hill Denham Money Market Fund (N2.18bn), Abacus Money Market Fund (N13.12bn), EDC Money Market Fund Class A (N11.69bn), EDC Money Market Fund Class B (N1.15bn), Coronation Money Market Fund (N6.22bn), Zenith Money Market Fund (N9.95bn), Afrinvest Plutus Fund (N654.27m), Legacy Money Market Fund (N10.12bn), GDL Money Market Fund (N865.7m), Vetiva Money Market Fund (N1.06bn) and FSDH Treasury Bill Fund (N3.39bn).

The top three fund managers under the money market fund are Stanbic IBTC Asset Management Limited, FBN Capital Asset Management Limited and Asset & Resources Management Company Limited.

Investment in fixed income funds increased from N56.85bn in December to N131.33bn in December.

Fixed income funds are funds that buy investments and pay a fixed rate of return like government bonds, investment-grade corporate bonds and high-yield corporate bonds.

They aim to have money coming into the fund on a regular basis, mostly through the interest that the fund earns.

Real estate funds, pooled from three sources ― Skye Shelter Fund, Union Homes REITs and UPDC Real Estate Investment Fund – stood at N46.12bn.

Mixed funds, which are made up of investment in different asset classes, recorded 0.31 per cent increase in investment as the funds grew from N24.04bn in November to N24.12bn.

Bond funds stood at N37.5bn while equity-based funds stood at N10.77bn.

The Divisional Head, Trading Business, Nigerian Stock Exchange, Mr Jude Chiemeka, had said that investments in mutual funds were projected to hit N1tn by year end.