News Round Up: July 30

Property ad considered investment advice; Financial firms looking to hire; Role of Perpetual observers clarified.

Monday, July 30th 2012, 10:37AM

Property ad considered investment advice

A radio advertisement for Property Brokers did not meet the standards of financial advertising, the Advertising Standards Authority has ruled.

In the ad, Tim Mordaunt promoted his company's services for those buying and selling property.

The complainant, S Atkinson said the ad offered financial and investing advice without the credentials to do so.

"I was of the impression that to provide investing advice a professional needs to have specific credentials. As this company is advertising real estate and Property management services while they may be in a related industry I would not have thought they should be offering financial, superannuation and investing advice."

The authority's complaints board said some of the wording in the advertisement could be considered investment advice, which it said was the domain of qualified investment professionals.

It said the advertisement did not meet the requirements of the code of financial advertising and also ruled that the advertisement did not meet the high standard of social responsibility required of advertisement of this kind.

Role of Perpetual observers clarified

The High Court has clarified the role of two court-appointed observers to funds involved in related-party loans between Perpetual and the Torchlight Fund.

Perpetual went to court claiming the observers, Vivian Fatupaito and Christopher Duffy of WHK, had "inadvertently" overstepped their powers, Justice Paul Heath said in a recent judgment.

"Their appointment was not intended to intrude on decision-making powers of the directors of Perpetual Trust, but was designed to enable oversight of the activities of the Perpetual Trust Board, insofar as it related only to management of the cash fund and the mortgage fund," the judgment said.

The observers were appointed earlier this month by Justice Heath to watch the funds and ask questions relating to the loans to Torchlight.

"I intended that the power to ask questions of board members would operate both within the confines of a formal board meeting and outside," he said.

The order was made after Trustees Executors voiced its concerns about the loan to the Financial Markets Authority. The $28 million facility has been fully repaid.

Financial firms looking to hire

Financial services firms are among the most confident when it comes to hiring expectations, a new survey by recruitment company Hudson has found.

The Hudson report for the July to September quarter found financial services/insurance was the third most optimistic profession, with 30% of firms looking to increase hiring.

Just fewer than 61% of financial services/insurance firms expected to keep their staffing levels steady, while 9.2% expected to decrease their headcount.

IT and technology employers were the most confident, with nearly half (48.9%) expecting to increase hiring.

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