News Round Up

Regulation of advisers, the case for SRI funds, US funds hit market.

Monday, May 7th 2001, 7:07AM

Regulation of financial advisers is back on the agenda again. Financial Planners and Insurance Advisers Association president Paul O'Brien says senior Government MP Steve Maharey has offered to support legislation for the regulation of advisers.

Government whip, Rick Barker, also offered to sponsor legislation last year. However under this arrangement the association would have had to pay the considerable cost of drafting the legislation.

Maharey has indicated that he will provide the written legislation.

For more on this see the interview with Paul O'Brien in the Features section.

Testing the water

Polls have been introduced to Good Returns to get readers' feelings on key subjects. Ethical or socially responsible funds have been ignored in the past as investors and adviser felt they had to sacrifice returns in these types of funds. However returns in ethical funds have been impressive over recent years.

The question we ask is are you or would you use an ethical fund, or are they a waste of time. To cast your vote and to see what others think click here.

US funds hit the market
Challenger International will make the funds of five US funds management giants available in Australia through a master trust which was launched last week.

The Challenger Global Choice investment vehicle will provide access to 20 funds from the likes of Janus Capital, Oppenheimer Funds, American Century, GMO and J&W Seligman.

Challenger's head of funds management Martin Ashe says Global Choice is the first true mirror fund in Australia because it replicates exactly the mutual funds available to US investors through a structure with a number of different classes of units.

Head of funds management Martin Ashe says he was looking for managers that wanted to distribute in the Australian market but did not want to go to the expense of setting up an office and obtaining a licence. At the same time, he needed managers that would fully commit support to the Australian market, "not come out for the launch and never be seen again".

The funds are mostly global in their spread but there are also some new funds for the Australian market such as a US small cap fund, US real estate fund and an emerging markets fund.

The 20 funds together have almost $114 billion under management, more than the total retail funds management market in Australia.

Register online
FPIA Conference details You can register for this year's Financial Planners and Insurance Advisers Conference online at Good Returns.
For full details of the conference, plus an online registration form CLICK HERE.
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