RIYADH, 18 March — The total mutual fund assets managed by banks in the Kingdom had reached SR45.8 billion by the end of September last year, registering a growth rate of 21.6 percent annually since 1994.

This is disclosed in a survey of the mutual funds market in the Kingdom conducted by the Riyadh-based Consulting Center for Finance and Investment (CCFI), a copy of which was released to Arab News.

The survey, which covered all the Saudi commercial banks, ranked the Saudi British Bank first in terms of the overall performance followed by Riyad Bank.

“The Saudi British Bank, which has scored 55 points, is adjudged the best performing bank in the mutual fund category, as it has bagged the maximum number of top slots among various categories on the record. Riyad Bank has secured the second position with 53 points and the third is the National Commercial Bank with 41 points. During the year 2000 the first, second and third position was secured by Riyad Bank, the Saudi British Bank and the National Commercial Bank respectively,” CCFI said in its mutual fund ranking 2001.

Releasing the major findings of the survey, it said the ranking revealed that every bank that competed has performed better at least in one category compared to the other players. “It was a clean sweep by the Saudi British Bank in the bond and money market segments. It captured 14 out of the 27 slots. Riyad Bank has spread its positions in a wide range of categories. NCB has featured well in the Trade Finance category taking five out of 18 slots in it. All others have selective performance record.”

Referring to the bond funds market, the report said there are nine bond funds floated by five banks in the Kingdom. The Saudi British Bank has three funds in this category. NCB’s Global Bond Fund tops the one-year category with a net return of 6.54 percent followed by the Saudi Government Bond Fund from the Saudi British Bank with 3.45 percent. In the three-year return the British Bank’s bond funds figure in the top three slots with Saudi Government Bond Fund topping with a return of 17.86 percent.

Among the five-year returns last year, the CCFI report said one-time topper SAMBA International Bond Fund has been placed third with a return of six percent, while AlBank AlSaudi AlFransi’s USD Bond Fund occupied the first position with 19.11 percent and SABB’s International Bond Fund stood second with 18.98 percent.

The report said there are in all 11 funds in the US dollar money market. The Saudi British Bank’s Sterling Money Market Fund, which came second last year in the three-year category, tops the one-year and three-year return with gains of 5.49 percent and 15.75 percent respectively. SABB’s USD Money Market Fund had secured the second position for the one-year and three-year category and first for the five-year category.

Riyad Bank’s Dollar Fund, that took the second slot last year in one year and five-year categories, stood third in the one year and three-year categories and second in the five-year category.

As for the Saudi Riyal Money Market, there were seven funds in this category. The Saudi British Bank dominated the category this year too, as its Saudi Riyal Money Market Fund topped again in all the one-year, three-year and five-year categories with returns of 5.44 percent, 18.14 percent and 32.18 percent respectively. SAMBA followed second in three-year and five-year categories with its Saudi Riyal Liquidity Fund gaining 17.09 percent and 29.55 percent respectively.

In the nine trade funds category, Alqawafel for Commodity from Bank Al Jazira floated in 2000 stood first with a return of 4.82 percent in a high liquidity, low interest rate scenario. NCB’s Al Ahli Saudi Riyal Trading Fund took the second slot in the three-year category with 14.78 percent, but was still last in the five-year category, which indicates its volatility in performance. SAMBA and Riyad Bank were the other two outstanding performers over the years.

In its market review, the CCFI report said the Saudi Stock Market posted profit for a third consecutive year, with the CCFI All Share Index registering a 7.6 percent increase during 2001. Among the sectors, the Cement Sector did well with 58.7 percent in 2001 as against 3.2 percent the year before. It was the best performing sector for the reporting period.

The Service Sector stood second with a growth rate of 16.7 percent in 2001 as against 5.6 percent in 2000.

The report concludes that the notching up of the first slot by the Saudi British Bank indicates its big leap in terms of its funds performance. “On the whole, we see little value addition during 2001 in terms of new funds, or performance or addition of investors. Banks continue to offer vanilla type funds with hardly any product differentiation in place. While some of the banks have achieved breadth in terms of product range (BSF, SABB, ANB, etc), they are yet to achieve depth in terms of market share. Mutual fund access as a percentage of total bank deposits is still at a low of 16 percent . Thus, there is room to improve on many counts, both at the industry level and at individual player levels.”