Weekly Wrap: D-day for disclosure

I wonder how many people will be giving advice today? Talking to lawyers yesterday it seemed there was a mad rush to get new disclosure documents signed off in time.

Friday, February 29th 2008, 2:20PM

No doubt there are some that are still working through the issues. Also, we understand that documents make insightful reading with some having up to three pages explaining all the fees and remuneration an adviser can receive.
More thoughts on this and media reaction are here.

It's been a pretty big week with more news around MFS, Fisher Funds drawing some unwanted speculation, Money Managers in a state of change and a number of finance companies reporting.

One story we haven't yet reported on is the quiet exit of Doug and Anne Somers-Edgar from Money Managers. I can confirm that the transaction is happening and that the business will be owned by franchisees, Money Managers staff and New Zealand Funds Management.

This is a real watershed for the industry, but is undoubtedly the first of many changes in the advisory industry.

The other change which is highly likely is that Vestar will be on the market and it won't sell for anything like the $52 million-plus which MFS paid for Northplan and the other firms.

As Good Returns reported this week Fisher Funds has lost its former chief investment officer, Warren Couillault. I have some thoughts on this in Phil's Blog

Fishy business
With all the goings-on at Fisher Funds the company is finding that when you reach the heights of being the market darling, it can be a long fall back down to earth. [more]

One of the changes happening at Good Returns is a revamp of the Insurance News pages of the site. This has a new look and will become a "portal" for risk advisers. Also if you visit the page you can sign up for a new risk newsletter, Take A Risk.

Our story this week is about market share figures.

While investment markets are in turmoil there is bad news for home owners too. This week saw another big increase in home loan rates from some of the main banks and next week we have the Reserve Bank's OCR announcement.

For some good news we have KiwiSaver (if you ignore returns) and finance companies.

During the week a number of companies including Marac and Allied Nationwide have reported their results for the period to December 31. These are encouraging and show money was still being made.

Yesterday I chaired a KiwiSaver conference in Auckland. It is clear that KiwiSaver has been a success and that there will be another peak in sign-ups in April when new rules come in making it compulsory for employers to contribute to the scheme.