News Round Up

AXA and Alliance merge, New column, BNZ to pay trail fees.

Monday, October 23rd 2000, 12:17AM

AXA Asia Pacific Holdings has agreed to merge its funds management business with its parent company's partially owned subsidiary Alliance Capital Management.

The deal involves AXA's businesses in Australia and New Zealand. The new group will be headed up by the current head of AXA's New Zealand funds management operation, Michael Bargholz.

AXA's name in this area will be replaced by the new group Alliance Capital Management New Zealand.

AXA and Alliance will each own 50 per cent of the equity of each new company and will have equal representation on the boards.

Day-to-day operational matters will be the responsibility of Alliance (which already has a base in Australia) while AXA will be responsible for distribution, product development and marketing in retail markets under the AXA brand.

The deal reinforces AXA's strategic focus on funds management and insurance, plus it enables the group to leverage the scale and capability of Alliance Capital

New column

Good Returns has started a new fortnightly column focusing on what's happening in Wellington. The column will keep tabs on what's happening in and around the Beehive.

The column is being written by Rob Hosking. Hosking is a Wellington-based freelance writer specialising in political, economic and IT related issues. As well as having done the myriad of obscure jobs while at university which people put in their bios to make themselves sound interesting (postie, security guard, cleaner, street clown, gardener, farm labourer) his background includes stints writing for Marketing, Ad/Media, and Computerworld. Most recently he worked in Parliament's press gallery for the National Business Review.

Hosking's first column can be found in the Features section.

BNZ to pay trails
Bank of New Zealand has announced that it will begin paying trail commissions of 0.25% on all its funds.

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