Come across this useful article from Wall Street Journal. The original article can also be assessed here:

Dr. Michael Hasenstab has led the Templeton Global Bond fund to the top of Morningstar Inc.’s world-bond category over the past decade. He got to No. 1 partly by saying no. No, that is, to strictly modeling his portfolio after a bond index, as many managers do.

The portfolios of funds in the world-bond category read like a who’s who of countries with debt woes. Most funds have very little exposure to Greece, which has asked the European Union and International Monetary Fund for help in paying its debts. But the average fund has lots of exposure to other, larger countries whose debt burdens loom large as a percentage of their overall economies-with nearly 30% of the typical portfolio in U.S. debt, 9% in Japan, 7% in the U.K. and smatterings in countries such as Spain and Italy.

The reason: Most fund managers base investment decisions on the composition of the index against which their funds-and often their paychecks-are measured. If managers don’t like a country’s outlook, they’ll usually “underweight” their holdings of its debt relative to the index-but they’ll usually still own some of it.

The problem, says Dr. Hasenstab, is that historically most indexes have been market-weighted, which means they are heavily tilted toward the countries with the most debt. He asks the key question: “Do you want to lend to the countries with the highest debt?”

His answer: “Not always, especially in this environment.”

So he takes a different approach, which has helped Templeton Global Bond, a fund that invests in government debt, to a 12% average annual return over the past decade. If Dr. Hasenstab and his team don’t like a country’s fiscal and economic outlook, they won’t own its debt. Of late Templeton Global Bond has held no debt from Japan or the U.K., and no U.S. Treasurys.

Instead, Dr. Hasenstab is more than willing to own big slugs of bonds from countries that have virtually no representation in the fund’s benchmark, the Citigroup World Government Bond Index, as long as they have strong fiscal policies and healthy economies. That’s a move that in most fund companies would have marketing executives complaining about “style drift.” For Dr. Hasenstab it has meant stakes in Brazil, Australia and South Korea.

As the economies of such countries bounce back more strongly than others, their central banks are tightening monetary policy, which isn’t good news for bondholders. But Mr. Hasenstab thinks he has positioned the portfolio to cushion any impact from higher short-term interest rates.

Time will tell on that front. But as a well-known technology company once said, sometimes it pays to “think different.”

On 26^th March 2010, a portion of the investment advisory and asset management business of AIG, now known as PineBridge Investments was completed.  PineBridge Investments is now owned by an affiliate of Bridge Partners, L.P., a company owned by Pacific Century Group, and is no longer a property of American International Group, INC (AIG).

With effect from 4^th January 2010, the Manager of AIG International Funds changed its name to PineBridge Investments Singapore Limited. Following this global rebranding initiative, changes will be made to the names of the Scheme and the relevant sub-funds constituted under the Scheme, which are distributed on our platform.

With effect from 7 April 2010, the name of the Scheme will be changed from AIG International Funds to PineBridge International Funds and the sub-funds will be renamed as follows:

There will be no change to the fees and expenses currently charged by the sub-funds. The above mentioned rebranding will not result in changes to Pinebridge Investments’ daily investment management activities and policies.

Franklin Templeton Investments one of the most recognized names in investment management worldwide. It has been honoured with 12 awards at this year’s The Edge-Lipper Singapore Fund Awards¹.

Equity

Franklin European Growth Fund
Best Fund over 5 Years – Equity Europe

Franklin European Small-Mid Cap Growth Fund
Best Fund over 3 & 5 Years – Equity Europe Small and Mid Cap

Franklin Mutual Beacon Fund
Best Fund over 10 Years – Equity North America

Templeton Global Fund
Best Fund over 10 Years – Equity Global

Balanced

Templeton Global Income Fund

Best Fund over 3 Years – Mixed Asset USD Balanced – Global

Fixed Income

Templeton Asian Bond Fund

Best Fund over 3 Years – Bond Asia Pacific

Templeton Emerging Markets Bond Fund
Best Fund over 3 & 5 Years – Bond Emerging Markets Global

Templeton Global Bond Fund
Best Fund over 10 Years – Bond Global

Templeton Global Total Return Fund
Best Fund over 3 & 5 Years – Bond Global

Prudential Asset Management announced that Swapcounter Party has given an official notification that a restructuring credit event had occurred in respect of Aiful Corporation.

The Reference Portfolio had a 0.25% in Aiful Corporation. The recovery rate of Aiful Corporation is expected to be 40%.

For more information, please refer to the notice from Prudential Asset Management below:

Notice_of_Credit_Event_for_PRU_3PLUS

This is one of the very few funds which survived the recession and made remarkable returns for their investors.

You may contact us for professional advice to invest this fund

Declaration Date : 6 November 2009
Dividend Rate per unit : SGD 0.042
Ex Date : 9 November 2009
Reinvestment/ Pay out Date : 16 November 2009
Reinvestment Price : SGD 11.12

Fund Fact Sheet