Hi

One of the most interesting stories this week had to be the one Good Returns ran about AXA and Gould Wealth Management. For those of you who missed it, you can read it here. In a nutshell, and reading between the lines a little, AXA seems dead keen on building a relationship with Goulds, which acquired many of Vestar’s customers. However, it seems as though there is some way to go on this.

I suspect we are going to see more of this type of activity where manufacturers buy up distribution groups. Also it would be no surprise to see advisers changing their allegiances during the year from one firm to another.

The other story which grabbed headlines was about ING and its CDO funds again. The key part is that the unitholder meeting to vote on a rescue plan for the Diversified Yield and Regular Income funds has been postponed, and another of its funds has also been frozen.

I think it would be fair to say the reaction to the original ING proposal to make a $100 million loan to investors wasn’t particularly favourably received. Reading into the firm’s comments this week they have taken that on board and will come back with a revised proposal.

Where's the research? The flood of retail money into corporate bonds at the moment has a whiff of the type of investor behaviour we saw over finance companies. [more]

AMP put out some research on kids and pocket money. Bit of an odd story for us to run, but I like it as providing financial literacy and knowledge to kids at school is something I absolutely endorse. If we can achieve this it will be a hugely important social change.

The insurance sector has been busy this week with the latest health figures out. The report from the Health Funds Association says there continues to be growth in this sector. It is indeed good news that, although times are tough, people aren’t cutting back on their cover.

We also have a piece for advisers on selling insurance in a recession. The one observation I make, and it is a point I spoke about at an adviser conference this week, was that risk is the area less cyclical than investments and mortgage broking and advisers seem to be enjoying a period of golden weather.

We have less political/regulatory news than usual this week, but it is worth noting the wide-ranging changes to life insurance tax look as though they have been put back so more consultation can be completed.

Shorter term home loan rates continue to edge down, but Good Returns’ comprehensive table of rates shows a couple of lenders upped their three, four and five year rates during the week. We provide an overall wrap of the market in our regular home loan report here.

There are plenty of events coming up for advisers at the moment, the other change is on April 1 to KiwiSaver. In our section here we have more information on what is planned and what employers have to do.

Have a great weekend.

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