Weekly Wrap: Are the gloves off?
A summary of all the top news stories of the week.
Friday, February 23rd 2007, 2:41PM
The big story of the week has to be the developing stouch between two associations representing advisers. The Institute of Financial Advisers has come out with some pretty strong, and emotive comments, about the Professional Advisers Association’s plans to prepare for regulation. You can read the story here and there is comment in Phil’s Blog too. Every adviser should be following this story and watching what happens.Getting our minds
around tax changes continues to be an on-going theme of stories
at the moment. This week we have two stories on the impacts
of the new fair dividend rate.
One
is that managers like AMP are expecting to move money from
passive to active management. This is unsurprising as passive,
under the old rules, enjoyed a significant tax advantage over
active management. For AMP it is a significant issue as it
has a huge amount of money in WiNZ. One point we will explore
later is that passive management isn’t dead –
it still has a place in a portfolio.
The other tax related one
is based on comments from ABN Amro Craig suggesting not all
ASX-listed shares are equal (under FDR). Rather the only ASX
company shares to be treated as “local” are ones
belonging to specified indices. Read about this here.
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Adviser
associations happily co-operating. Yeah right |
Other news stories this week include plans by Deutsche Bank’s property arm to enter the New Zealand market attracted by KiwiSaver and investment tax changes.
Also Fidelity Life has an IPO in the market place at the moment which has had its size increased by 50% due to demand. There is a news story here and also a Special Report on its unlisted version of the fund.
In our News Round Up section the battle for control of the St John property fund heats up with St Laurence’s takeover offer being countered by parties associated with the fund. Also in the Round Up is news on the success of the first infrastructure bond tender and a comment piece (related to our top story). Did the PAA challenge other associations?
On the new product front we have a report on Asteron’s latest developments with its insurance policies. These include a new line of key person insurance, as well as add-ons to its existing SmartLife and SmartLiving products – and a premium increase.
KiwiSaver is attracting more attention. Our SuperTalk site, brought to you by AXA, has several pieces including comments from the National Party’s Bill English which puts some useful context around the view that KiwiSaver will be turned into a compulsory super scheme.
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If you are in the home loan market the news isn’t so good. Rates keep rising with banks making further increases today. Two-year fixed rates are now sitting around the 8.20% mark in some cases. For all the latest rate info go to the Mortgage Centre.
No newsletter is complete without an update on New Appointments. We have former AXA ceo Vaughan Underwood resurfacing, BT’s Murray Harris moving on and a number of other appointments. All these are in the People section of the site.
| « News Round Up | Sovereign takes regulation bull by the horns » |
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