[THE INVESTOR] Local funds investing in subsidiaries of Samsung Group have posted returns close to 40 percent this year thanks to a jump in their share prices, a market tracker said on Nov. 17.

Samsung-focused investment funds managing 10 billion won (US$9.1 million) or more posted an average return of 38.9 percent in the year up to Nov.16, according to FnGuide.

This outstanding yield stems from spikes in the share prices of Samsung Electronics, the group’s flagship, and other subsidiaries.

Top cap Samsung Electronics, the world‘s largest smartphone and memory chip maker, closed at 2.79 million won on Thursday, up a whopping 54.8 percent from the start of the year.

The average return of Samsung investment funds even hovered about 40 percent when the share price of Samsung Electronics soared to 2.88 million recently.

Samsung-oriented investment funds have far outperformed the overall stock market and other types of investment funds.

The average return to date is 24.9 percent for overseas stock funds, 24.6 percent for domestic stock funds, 3.1 percent for overseas bond funds and 0.7 percent for domestic bond funds, but domestic property funds are in negative territory to the tune of 13.6 percent.

Over the past month, FnGuide also said, healthcare funds have shined on big gains in share prices of biopharmaceutical companies, including Celltrion Inc., the top cap company of the tech-heavy KOSDAQ market.

The average return of healthcare funds came to 7.72 percent, higher than the 3.11 percent for Samsung funds and 3.09 percent for domestic stock funds, according to FnGuide.

By Alex Lee and newswires (alexlee@heraldcorp.com)