EPF Declares 5.35% Dividend 2022

The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) has declared a dividend rate of 5.35% for Conventional Savings for 2022, with a total payout amounting to RM45.44bil as well as a 4.75% for Syariah Savings, with a payout amounting to RM5.7bil. In total, the retirement fund’s payout for 2022 amounts to RM51.14bil.

Last year, EPF declared dividends of 6.1% for conventional savings (for the year 2021) and 5.65% for syariah savings. Over the past 10 years, EPF's dividend payout for conventional savings has 5.8% in 2010 followed by 6% (2011), 6.15% (2012), 6.35% (2013), 6.75% (2014), 6.4% (2015), 5.7% (2016), 6.9% (2017), 6.15% (2018), 5.45% (2019) and 5.2% (2020).

For syariah savings, it recorded dividends of 6.4% in 2017, 5.9% (2018), 5% (2019) and 4.9% (2020).

Driven by high market volatility and lower valuations across equity and fixed income markets, the EPF recorded a lower total gross investment income of RM55.33bil as of Dec 31,2022 compared to RM68.89bil in 2021.

From the gross investment income of RM55.33 bil, RM6.83bil were allocated to Simpanan Shariah. A total of 74% of the total amount came from Shariah-compliant counters that underperformed, which in turn impacted the EPF’s Simpanan Shariah performance for the year.

Mass Withdrawal - EPF claimed that the assets under management (AUM) remained stable despite the withdrawals coming up to RM145 bil. EPF’s investment assets remain intact and closed at RM1.003 trillion in December 2022, which is a slight reduction of 0.7% from the RM1.01 trillion in 2021.

By broad asset class, Fixed Income instruments made up 47% of investment assets, while Equities comprised 42%. Real Estate and Infrastructure as well as Money Market instruments made up 7% and 4% of EPF assets, respectively.

As for its asset class, equities contributed RM30.54bil, or 55% of the EPF’s total gross income, lower compared to the RM41.06bil recorded in 2021.

Foreign listed equities, which yielded a return on investment (ROI) of 9.27%, continued to be the driver of returns for this asset class. As of Dec 2022, foreign investment made up about 36% of the EPF’s investment assets and contributed 45% of the EPF’s total gross investment income.

The private equity portfolio also demonstrated strong performance, recording an ROI of 13.65%. This portfolio generated lower gross investment income compared to 2021, largely due to lower valuations of the underlying assets, apart from lower distributions received for the year.