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Zvonimir Marić, member of KD Asset
Management’s Board of Directors, speaks about
investing into the stock market in Croatia
Interviewed by: Aurelija Vukušiæ
Croatians
Starting to Like
Securities More
and More
There are shares that are unreasonably expensive
in Croatia these days, but we can’t say that every
share on the market is overestimated. It’s correct
that the expected rise and progress of some
shares is calculated into the price. Regardless of
that, it’s my prediction that we can expect aboveaverage
profits by the time we enter the EU – says
Zvonimir Marić
How long has KD Group been existent Since
when does it do business in Croatia Which of
their services are offered in Croatia
KD Group was founded in Slovenia in 1992, and
today it does business in 10 countries and manages over
one billion euros of assets while dealing with numerous
business branches: investment funds, broker houses, insurances,
banking, investing into real estate, entertainment
industry etc. The company started expanding
outside Slovenian borders in 1997 by founding an association
for fund management – Fondinvest (legal predecessor
to KD Investments), and two years later the first
stock fund in Croatia, Victoria Fond, started operating.
Today’s KD Victoria Fond achieves very decent profits
and has been declared the best stock fund in Croatia
three times. These days, the organization manages two
other funds, and those are the mixed KD Balanced and
the bond-dealing KD Adria Bond, and starting two more
funds is under way. Overall assets under KD Investment’s
management mount up to over 600 million kunas. In
2005, KD Group founded KD Asset Management, which
is a broker house in Croatia that performed its first transaction
in September of that year. Since early 2007, KD
Asset Management started managing individual portfolios
and is registered as a full-service broker house, which
means that it can perform almost all transactions on the
financial market. KD Asset Management today manages
over 20 million kunas in individual portfolios.
What are the results of KD Asset Management What sort
34
of interest do Croatians show for investing into securities
The results are very satisfactory. In nearly two years of doing
business, market portions of about two percent were
reached in both the segment of trading securities and
the segment of managing portfolios. Those are already
excellent indicators for a broker house that is relatively
young and that doesn’t have a large bank watching
its back. Market portions still have a growing tendency,
especially in the segment of individual management.
Croatians are showing great interest in investing into
securities, which is primarily the consequence of truly
tempting profits and the fact that you could almost do
no wrong when it came to choosing the shares. However,
being careful is necessary because there will inevitably
come a period with average profits, even with losses
on some shares. That’s all part of the process that needs
to happen. Anyway, if we take indicators for developed
markets into consideration, the Croatian financial market
has plenty of room to grow.
Which are the significant characteristics of the service of
managing individual portfolios
That service is most similar to investing into stock funds,
but it also has some specific characteristics: it functions
so that the investor gives the manager certain funds to
his disposal (current minimum is 150.000 kunas), which
the manager then invests by his own judgement while
respecting investment guidelines. The guidelines can,
but don’t have to be put into the contract.