It's better to catch fish than poach them

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Unitholders in Prudential's Emerging Companies Trust have been given a new option.

Thursday, May 20th 1999, 12:00AM

by Philip Macalister

Fisher Funds highly controversial marketing move to poach unitholders from the Prudential Emerging Companies Trust (ECT) has been unsuccessful.
Carmel Fisher, who was the founding manager of the ECT, wrote to all the unitholders in the fund inviting them to switch to a similar fund run by her new company Fisher Funds Management.
She offered ECT unitholders a free switch plus, plus incentives to move. The incentives included a reduction in the minimum investment from $10,000 to $1,000 and an offer to give investors additional units to the value of 1 per cent if they switched and made no withdrawals for 12 months.
The move was made as it appeared Colonial First State, which took-over Prudential last year, was going to close the ECT along with all the other Prudential funds it inherited.
Colonial announced, last week, that it was indeed closing all the Prudential unit trusts, including the ECT, as well as some of its own funds.
However, it was also launching a new fund and that was an Australasian version of the ECT, the Tasman Developing Companies Trust.
Colonial First State chief executive Bruce Abraham says Fisher's offer has had "no impact" on the ECT trust, in fact the fund had grown in size in the three months to March 31, and it had produced strong returns of 17.14 per cent in the 12 month period.
Fisher acknowledges the marketing initiative was "not a huge financial success", however that was "not unexpected".
She says the campaign did achieve its aim of raising the profile of Fisher Funds with 3000 investors.

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