The merger's all go. The Association of Investment Advisers and Financial Planners (IAFP) has voted, today, in favour of forming a new association with the Insurance and Investment Advisers Association (IIAA).
The remit relating to the merger was passed by 212 votes to 148 at a special meeting in Wellington.
This is a comfortable margin in IAFP terms considering how close the voting has been on major decisions in the past.
Chairman Denys Wright says the decision to proceed with the merger was "a fairly major step for financial planning in New Zealand".
He also described the merger as being the best way forward for the association.
Fellow board member, Paul Forder, said the merger was an economic necessity as, in its current state, the IAFP could not always meet its constitutional obligations, including the promotion of the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) marque.
While the meeting did not spend a lot of time discussing the pros and cons of the merger, there was considerable discussion about some of the technical issues relating to the documentation.
In the week before the meeting the Northern Region Management Committee circulated a letter expressing concerns about the draft constitution.
Northern region chairman Karl Schweder proposed some amendments to the first remit aimed at addressing these concerns.
The amended remit was lost 224:136.
However, Wright acknowledged some of the concerns about the draft constitution, and said they would be looked at, by the IAFP, its lawyers and the IIAA.
Wright also expressed personal disappointment that the Northern Region left its concerns until the last minute.
The meeting was attended by 32 voting members, 18 of whom were also proxyholders. A further 167 proxies (132 from CFPs) were submitted to the IAFP.
by Ann Cunninghame and Philip Macalister