[Weekly Wrap] What's in a name

We know readers are interested in this union/merger. Whatever you want to call it can be best worked out from the make up of the new entity. TNP own 57.5%, Ginger sit at 37.5% and the other 5%is owned by the new chairman, David Johnstone. The idea of Jeff Page and Maurice Trapp in a civil union, even though they cut the cake together, is one of the truly memorable highlights of the past few years.

What does this get together really mean? Perhaps the most revealing thing is the new name and address of the organisation. It is "Kepa. The Advisers Institute" (I may have to tell them about apostrophes) and it has a dot org domain name rather than dot co nz. As Page explains in this story the plan is to get away from being either a dealer group or a group for the aggregation of commissions. No one can argue with that.

I think the creation of the group is interesting as it is really the birth of another mega-group. It wasn't that long ago that Allied Kiwi and Loan Market combined to become NZFSG and the dominant player in the mortgage broker world. Now we have Kepa with 710 members and, arguably, the mega insurance advisers group. However, unlike NZFSG there is another big insurance group in Newpark. I am sure all the product manufacturers are watching these groups evolve with interest. At the same time NZFSG is evolving into the life space while it is unclear how Kepa will do that.

There appears to be little such action in the investment/financial planning world. The big groups are sharebroker-based organisations. Spicers appears to be suffering some issues, however we understand AMP settled on the purchase of Goldridge last Wednesday.