WiNZ set to treble

Investors in WiNZ are about to get a fund that will better track the MSCI index, but they are going to have to pay for it.

Tuesday, August 7th 2001, 6:54AM

AMP Henderson is changing the way it invests its international index fund WiNZ so that it gets better coverage of world markets.

Currently WiNZ tracks the MSCI on what is known as a sampling basis, where it holds the top 80% by market capitalisation of the MSCI for each of the countries in the fund.

It plans to move towards a basis which is closer to full replication of the MSCI which means it will cover 95% of the MSCI.

In effect it will almost treble the number of stocks in the fund from 260 to nearly 750.

"This enhances the level of diversification provided by the AMP WiNZ Fund. It also aligns the AMP WiNZ Fund even more closely with the MSCI Index, providing a better approximation of total global sharemarkets," AMP Henderson says.

The changes coincide with major changes to the MSCI which also impact on the fund's makeup.

As announced previously improvements are being made to the MSCI. These changes are being made in two tranches in November and May 02.

Firstly the index will move to a free float basis. The calculated free float for each company is based on the number of shares available to purchase on the open market. It excludes all controlling interests of a company, and allows for foreign ownership limitations.

By contrast the current MSCI Index is based on total market capitalisation of each company, and includes all shares on issue. This change increases the index weights of companies who have most of their shares freely tradable and reduces weightings for those whose ownership is concentrated and seldom trade.

Secondly there will be increased coverage of each country. At present the MSCI Index aims to include the top 60% of each national stock market by capitalisation. MSCI propose to increase this to 85% of free float weighted capitalisation. This will significantly increase the number of stocks included in the MSCI Index, as more medium and smaller sized companies will be included.

AMP Henderson is currently in the process of getting unitholder approval for its planned changes.

Unitholders are being asked to approve the one-off transaction costs of moving to the revised AMP World Index, and that future brokerage and custody costs be deducted from the fund.

These brokerage costs will be slightly higher in future as a result of the increased number of companies in the AMP World Index.

The WiNZ fund was one of about a dozen index funds that had their binding rulings renewed for another three years on June 30. The binding ruling for its superannuation version of WiNZ expires in December. AMP Henderson is confident that this will be renewed also.

It says Super WiNZ will also be moved to a replication basis.

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