[Weekly Wrap] Rolling stones gather no moss

This week it was interesting to hear the views of former ING head honcho Paul Fyfe on the ANZ buyout of the business.

Friday, October 9th 2009, 4:01PM

A number of readers have noted how positive he was on the deal. The whole story has been quite fascinating as it hasn't had the media coverage one would have expected.

This is a big deal and it will, potentially, change the shape of the advisory industry in particular. We are watching to see how it rolls out and what stance ANZ will take towards distribution and using independent financial advisers.

Generally none of the banks in New Zealand have used their fund management capabilities to distribute products through IFAs. The closest is ASB, while Westpac essentially pulled BT from the retail space and have kept it as an in-house fund manager.

During the week ING conducted its roadshow around the country. I understand the message was business as usual. The topic for the presentations was around fixed interest. We report here on ING's views about fixed interest. Have a read.

We are looking at doing a feature on how advisers are managing their fixed interest allocations and if you would like to make any comments, use the comment box at the end of the story.

Our story on gold has had quite a few comments this week. While the story is about gold it also has some economic predictions from Louis Boulanger. (Louis used to head Mercer in New Zealand and chairs an asset allocation panel for one advisory group.)

Our regulatory piece, and yes it seems there is at least one a week, covers some of the submissions on disclosure changes. The initial thread we pulled out here was that the banks are all singing a similar song.

Two of the most interesting stories in the deposit taking area this week are noises from Dorchester that it may seek some sort of deal with its debenture holders to help the company get back on its feet, and news about the University of Canterbury planning to raise up to $100 million through a bond issue.

The Dorchester story is a bit of good cop, bad cop. The company appears to be doing well working through its moratorium, being open about progress, making payments and giving investors assurance the next payment is in the bag. On the bad cop side it is suggesting that things will get tougher and it would like to do some sort of deal, which appears to mean, change the plans around debenture repayment.

Canterbury University's bond offer brought a smile to my face. Old hands in the industry will remember the Vice-Chancellor, Rod Carr, from his days in the industry when he ran BNZ's financial planning operations. Rod always had good and innovative ideas and this offer is clearly one of those. It will be fascinating to see how much the institution can raise.

There are three new insurance stories since last week's Wrap: Dorchester has a new cover to protect people when they are made redundant; PricewaterhouseCoopers give its take on the insurance industry, and; Russell Hutchinson asks: Where's the insurance innovation?

And to close out this week's newsletter, AMP Capital has another personnel change, Ian Smedley, who recently joined Public Trust after years with Guardian Trust has poached one of his former colleagues, and Dorchester gets another new board member. All the details are in People.

Have a great weekend.
Philip

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