MTSL verifying status of fund unit holders

 MELANESIAN Trustee Services Ltd, the trustee of Pacific Balance Fund (PBF), is verifying the status of its unit holders, chief executive officer Kennedy Wemin said.

“The road to recovery for PBF is focused on the audits and verification of unit holders … this has been ongoing since July 2010. 

“We plan to complete this once the 2012 financial statements are adopted for the benefits of the unit holders,” Wemin said in a statement yesterday.

He said that since 2010, the PBF unit holder verification process, issuing of unit certificates and printing of membership ID cards and reprinting of unit certificates from the former Investment Corporation of PNG (ICPNG) to PBF certificates, had been slowly progressing. 

“The unit holders yet to be verified represented a large number of the rural population, who bought units when ICPNG undertook a massive unit subscriber campaign in the early 1970’s to early 1980s,” Wemin said.

“From a possible 13.2 million units in circulation, the PBF verification team has already verified 73%.

Wemin said the 13.2 million units represented about 40,000 unit holders.

He said the unit holders or their next of kin should visit PBF offices or agents to re-register their ICPNG unit certificates.

“The PBF unit investment has experienced a tenfold growth – meaning, that from the time our fathers and mothers purchased units 30 to 40 years ago at around K1, the value per unit has jumped between K18 and K22.

“With this, it is to the benefit of the unit holders to see us,” Wemin said.