The lights are out, but the candle still burns

Auckland-based fund managers have a variety of responses to the city's power crisis.

Tuesday, February 24th 1998, 12:00AM

The on-going power crisis in downtown Auckland has forced Bankers Trust to shift its operations, for the first time ever, to a specially built "disaster recovery centre" in South Auckland to conduct its operations.
The centre has been in existence for a number of years and is designed as a back-up office for its banking operations.
Currently the investment team of its fund management business are also in residence at the Papatoetoe facility.
As part of BT's contingency plans three of the fund management client service staff flew to Sydney on the weekend. All investor enquiries are now being diverted across the Tasman.

Armstrong Jones, which is situated in the ASB Bank building, is still in residence however it is working on contingency plans which may include moving some staff or operations to its Christchurch office.
Communications manager Mandy Vernon says it was business as usual yesterday and they have been able to operate all their equipment because of the ASB's generator.
However, AJ is evaluating the situation on a day by day basis and had some contingency plans should they be forced out of the CBD area.
New Zealand Funds Management, which along with IPAC Securities, JB Were and Calan Healthcare Properties have offices in the closed Coopers and Lybrand Building have activated its contingency plan and relocated its operations in Penrose.
Glenn Wright says the firm has this contingency plan in place for some time.
He says the building managers warned them on Friday night that there were going to be problems this week and that gave the firm plenty of time to make the shift to Penrose.
Some NZ Funds staff are working from home, as are IPAC's staff.
Other managers in Auckland's CBD are Equitable, New Zealand Guardian Trust and Coronet Asset Management.
Equitable has moved its computer systems out of the office and was doing all the administration functions off-site.<

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