The Securities Commission, in December, granted an exemption which allows firms to promote UK authorised unit trusts and OICs in New Zealand without a registered prospectus and investment statement.
These schemes can use their British offer documents but have to supply New Zealand investors with some additional information.
Coronet Asset Management says it is not far away from offering the GAM NZ Equity Growth Trust in New Zealand, Royal & SunAlliance are working on offering some OICs here, and Tower Managed Funds has shown interest in this area previously.
"Coronet believes open-ended investment companies are what investors are now demanding, rather than closed end funds such as NZIT," chief executive John Rowley says.
Coronet has been advising the GAM NZ Equity Growth Trust for about 18 months and plans to do a major promotion of the fund in the near future.
Rowley says OICs have all the advantages of UK closed end funds, but the added advantage is that investors can come and go at net tangible asset backing.
This is a major issue in the UK at present as major institutional investors quit their stakes in favour of direct investment in foreign markets.
This move has seen many of the UK listed investment trusts trading at significant discounts.
One of the techniques boards have used to bolster prices and get them closer to NAV is by using share buy backs.
The GAM trust, which Coronet advises, is very similar to the New Zealand Investment Trust which is listed in New Zealand and London.
Coronet's position as advisers to NZIT and GAM created some tension with the NZIT board.
However, NZIT director Brian Gaynor says Coronet's involvement with GAM had nothing to do with the decision to dump Coronet as advisers to NZIT and replace them with BT Funds Management and Fisher Funds Management.
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