MANILA — Sun Life Investment Management and Trust Corporation is eyeing to grow its Assets Under Management to P450 billion by the end of the year.

Its current AUM is above P400 billion and it intends to grow it by 10 percent with its retail offering about to begin in April.

Sun Life Investment Management, Sun Life's standalone non-bank affiliated trust company, said they have been managing the insurance fund for the past 4 years and now aim to make investment open to every Filipino.

"Sun Life should not only be known as an insurance company, but also a strong investment management company... Diversifying their portfolios away from banks to having a one solution, one platform," said Michael Enriquez, President of Sun Life Investment Management.

It will offer unit investment trust funds for its retail side, which will be open to all for a minimum of P5,000. It has started training its insurance agents to also become investment experts.

They hope Filipinos will invest more this year, admitting that incestment pentration remains low in the Philippines. Which also means there is a potentially big market.

"Look into investing. Investing is a critical skill because if you don’t invest, money that you earn is actually getting lower in terms of value because of inflation," said Chief Investment Officer Ritchie Ryan Teo.

Teo added that the economic outlook this year remains positive amid global challenges. He forecasts the gross domestic product to grow 6.2 percent this year and inflation to hit 3.1 percent, and PSEi to reach 6,600 level.