Cosmin Paunescu, general manager of KD Investments, says the distribution of some funds centrally managed at the level of the group will complement the company's offering on the domestic market.

KD Investments, an investment management company, part of Slovenia's KD Group financial group, plans to start distributing funds of the KD DeLux range on the Romanian market by yearend. KD DeLux funds are registered in Luxembourg, with the range including three equity and two bond funds.

"We want to bring KD DeLux funds onto the Romanian market by yearend. We are primarily interested in the bond funds of the DeLux range, which would complement our current offering considering the Romanian capital market provides few placement alternatives for bond funds," Cosmin Paunescu, the general manager of KD Investments, told ZF. Pioneer Asset Management (the former CA IB) also announced it intended to distribute funds of the group it is part of starting 2007. KD Investments must first get the approval of the National Securities Commission (CNVM) to start distributing the foreign funds, with legislation related to funds managed abroad being highly restrictive at this moment.

Beside the distribution of funds centrally managed at the level of the group, KD Investments also plans to launch two domestically managed funds this year. The first one, KD Optimus, is a diversified fund awaiting CNVM approval and set to launch in September, and the second one will be a funds fund to largely invest in local and foreign fund units.

KD Investments currently manages an equity fund, KD Maximus, launched in July 2004. KD Maximus last year posted a 23.9% yield and has witnessed a fund unit decline by 2.6% since the beginning of this year. The value of KD Maximus assets in late June stood at around 4.87m euros.

Paunescu estimates assets under KD Investments management wil