New society aims to raise manager standards

Raising the ethical standards of New Zealand fund managers is a key goal of a new society established last week.

Monday, October 16th 2000, 11:19PM

by Philip Macalister

A new society was established in New Zealand last week aimed at raising the ethical standards of fund managers.

The New Zealand Society of Investment Professionals (NZSIP) is a chapter of the global Association for Investment Management and Research (AIMR) organisation. AIMR has 43,000 members in 95 countries.

AIMR's goal is to "become a voice for ethical behaviour in the investment management industry", founding president Louis Boulanger says.

He says there is a high level of interest in raising the bar for the standard of professional behaviour.

"The investment markets in New Zealand are essentially unregulated compared to most other developed countries and there is no licensing of operators."

The Securities Commission is currently doing its first major review of fund management practices.

Commission chief executive John Farrell says the review is proving to be a more complex task than first thought because the industry is multifaceted and varied.

Farrell is scheduled to give a presentation on the review at the Funds Management conference in Auckland later this week. (For more details click here).

Boulanger says AIMR is very interested to see the results of the study.

"We are sure this will cause some soul searching amongst New Zealand's (largely unregulated) funds management industry," he says.

NZSIP was kicked off with just 25 members, however the number of people in the industry wanting to gain the AIMR Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation is growing quickly.

Boulanger says five years ago there were just a handful of people studying for the CFA exam, this year just under 100 people are studying.

For more on AIMR click here

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