Weekly Wrap: Chipping away at investor confidence

For once all the attention has been on something other than finance companies. Rather the big news story this week has been Blue Chip.

Friday, February 15th 2008, 4:23PM

Now you may wonder what Blue Chip has to do with the advisory industry? Well I think quite a lot, including the revelation that quite a few advisers had been selling Blue Chip property investments – what an ironic name.

For some other thoughts on Blue Chip and what it means for advisers check out Phil's Blog here.

KISS principle still rules
You may think Blue Chip and the financial advisory industry have little in common. [more]

Other news this week includes the likely end for two more companies, one is Absolute Capital. David Chaplin provides you with an excellent report today on the demise of the company, including the revelation that the company had overcharged management fees to investors.

The other story is MFS Pacific. Now this one is hard to understand. The company made an announcement at the start of this week about a proposed moratorium, however it is unclear whether it was proposing a Geneva-like one to help it through this tough patch, or whether it was an orderly wind down of the business. To me it seems like the latter. The company isn't talking about it and the trustee still does not have all the details so we will watch and wait. In the meantime, there are some comments about the m(F)ess (mess – geddit?) here.

On a far more positive note, we report on a good result from Strategic Finance and the return of BT Funds to the retail space.

Another story, which quite possibly ruffled a few feathers, is our one about the ISI investigating establishing its own Approved Professional Body for advisers. It seems a sensible idea, but one which others looking to build an APB empire, will no doubt frown upon….

Depositrates.co.nz continues to bring you plenty of investment news including rate changes. Highlights this week were increases from Hanover and RaboPlus. Also in that part of the site, Hanover takes the unusual step of responding to some of the criticism leveled at it through the weekly business press.

New Zealand investors felt the global effects of the credit crunch and commodities boom in 2007. It looks as though these two trends will continue to dominate financial headlines this year. Michael Coote examines these issues in this month's Special Report.

In features, Tyndall's Peter Lynn puts recent market moves into perspective, while AMP Capital provides some sensible advice to KiwiSavers.

Two fascinating pieces of news in People this week. This morning Fisher Funds announced that Warren Couillault has resigned as a director of Fisher Funds Management, but will remain as an employee of the company.

Second, the founder of a boutique funds management firm has left his business to become head of asset management at Goldman Sachs JB Were.