6.30 SEN PER UNIT FOR ASD INCOME DISTRIBUTION

June 24 , 2009

KUALA LUMPUR: - Amanah Saham Nasional Berhad (ASNB), a wholly owned subsidiary of Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) has announced an income distribution of 6.30 sen per unit for Amanah Saham Didik (ASD) for the financial year end June 30, 2009.

PNB Chairman, Tun Ahmad Sarji Abdul Hamid said the income distribution will involve a total payment of RM156.82 million.

It will benefit a total of 224, 729 unit holders who collectively owned 2.83 billion units of ASD.

Tun Ahmad Sarji said, the ASD financial year which ended on June 30, 2009 has been a challenging year due to the global investment environment which was severely affected by the world’s financial crisis and worsening economy.

“The benchmark Kuala Lumpur Composite Index saw a drop of 26.46 percent from 1,186.57 points recorded on June 30, 2008 to 872.55 points on March 31, 2009, before rebounding to 1,059.50 points on June 19, 2009. Nevertheless, our prudent strategy has enabled the ASD fund to provide competitive returns to its unitholders’” he said during a press conference to announce the income distribution today.

Commenting on the global scenario, Tun Ahmad Sarji said the world’s major economies have aggressively been slashing rates to help arrest further deterioration and at the same time spur growth.

At home, Bank Negara has reduced its overnight policy rate throughout the ASD financial year to 2.0 percent to help generate domestic growth. The nation’s economy, which had contracted by 6.2 percent in the first quarter of 2009, is expected to improve during the second half of the year particularly in the fourth quarter of the year.

Up until June 19, 2009, ASD has recorded a gross income of RM185.94 million. Of the amount, profit from the sale of investment contributed RM80.26 million or 43.16 percent, dividend income from investee companies contributed RM88.68 million or 47.69 percent while the remaining income of RM17.00 million or 9.15 percent is derived from investments in short term instruments.

All transactions for ASD at the ASNB offices and agents will be suspended from June 24, 2009 to June 30, 2009 to facilitate the calculation of income distribution.

The calculation of the income distribution is based on the average monthly minimum balance held throughout the financial year of ASM.

It will be re-invested into additional units of ASD which will be automatically credited into the unit holders’ accounts.

For the unitholders who subscribed to the ASD through the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) Member’s Scheme, the income distribution will be credited directly into their respective EPF accounts.

The income distribution statement and fund’s annual report will be sent to unit holders beginning middle of August, 2009.

ASD has received an overwhelming response from investors ever since the fund was launched in 2001 with an initial fund size of 300 million. Since then, the fund size has been increased six times, with current approved fund size of 4.5 billion.

ASD is a fixed priced unit trust fund opened to Bumiputera investors aged 6 months and above. It is also listed in the Employees Provident Fund Member’s Investment Scheme.