[The Wrap] The future of research; New groups coming; Milking big returns

Who will research managed funds in the future? That's a question which is live right now. Meanwhile, there's lots happening amongst the groups now that FSLAB is getting closer.

Friday, August 24th 2018, 9:19AM

What’s the future of managed funds research in New Zealand is a question that is being asked around the industry.

Both research houses are going through change. Morningstar’s man on the ground in New Zealand, Chris Douglas, is leaving and won’t be replaced locally.
Rather New Zealand will bs serviced off of Sydney. Considering New Zealand is such small beer in the Morningstar Australasia operation then you do wonder about the commitment to this market.

NZX is getting rid of non-core assets and FundSource fits into this category.

Who would pick up this business is a question that is being asked around the market.

One thing is clear advisers need research and ideally more than one research house is better than just one.

Exciting times in the group space

In my travels it’s become clear that now regulation (FSLAB) is inching closer to the finish line there is a hive of activity in the group space.

We are aware of one new dealer group (find out who next week), one revitalised group which will be announced on September 1, and a group well-known industry people looking to establish a new group.

At the same time established groups are doing a lot of work on what they will look like post-FSLAB.

Advisers need to be thinking carefully around whether they want to try and get their own licence or go under someone else’s licence.

When it comes to the latter it is clear that existing groups will “cull” their existing memberships.

They will be taking responsibility and liability for the advice given. One would expect that there will be a conservative approach to this and will be careful in deciding who they accept under their licence.

When FSLAB is passed into law is an unknown. Currently Parliament is in recess so nothing is happening. The bill is around number 20 on the Order Paper, but it could well be bumped up the list.

We have seen the Minister of Commerce, Kris Faafoi is keen to get it passed and has already been successful getting it this far in the current Parliamentary term.

As a bit if an aside I had an interesting call this week from some telemarker trying to make appointments for a life insurance adviser. During the all he described the adviser as “government approved”.

At that point I had to stop playing games and provide a stern warning that there as no such thing. I do wonder how much of this goes on out there.

Who's doing the regulating?

This week’s Wrap can’t finish without some comment on one of our stories this week. It’s the piece around the DIMS service run by Christchurch-based adviser Alistair Bean. He’s produced good results for his clients, primarily through massive exposures to one stock, A2 Milk.

Many people have questioned this and to Mr Bean’s credit he has gone on record and talked about his approach.

It does raise the questions around how much monitoring the FMA does of the small population of DIMS providers and if it struggles here, how the heck is it going to regulate the hundreds, if not thousands of FAPS which will evolve in the new regulatory environment?

My guess is that this story has more legs in it yet.

Tags: DIMS FSLAB FundSource