The ING thing

• Tweet

Friday, October 24th 2003, 5:00PM

So all these rumours and speculation are right. The ANZ is going to buy the National Bank of New Zealand for quite a few billion dollars.

 

The race for the Black Horse has been a one horse race for sometime now – so it’s no great surprise.

 

What will be surprising is how are they going to run the business? Are they going to chop it up and move bits around like banks are prone to doing?

 

Although lots of the press will be about things like mortgages and cheque accounts what’s going to happen on the wealth management (that’s managed funds to most of us) side of things.

 

 

Are another set of customers going to end up with ING looking after their money? After all they are getting a charmed run as being the fund manager to the bankers. A number of years back WestpacTrust (as it was called then) outsourced its funds management business to Armstrong Jones (as it was called then). AJ/ING has managed most of that money until recently when Westpac bought BT Funds Management and decided it’s new arm should look after the money.

 

But in the merry go round of financial services, ANZ, two years ago, did a joint venture with ING and ING are now managing the savings and insurance business for that bank.

 

Maybe they will get NBNZ’s money as well. It seems to be the ING thing.

To read more about this story go to:
ANZ to buy National Bank for A$4.9 billion
Brokers not keen on ANZ/NBNZ deal

The Guv speaks - but who heard?

One of the hottest topics at the moment is where people are investing their money. Most of the headlines are about residential housing, and wannabe millionaires pouring what little cash they have into property (and borrowing the rest from the bank).

 

Perhaps one of the most interesting comments on the issue came last week in a speech Reserve Bank guv Alan Bollard made to accountants. While most stories reported him on housing, the biggest message in his speech was about other investments. While he didn’t name anything specifically, there was clear reference to fixed interest investments.

 

As we all know there are plenty of new options in this area including capital notes, debentures and CDOs. While there is a place for all these investments people need to understand them.
Bollard tells people to seek advice
Lessons from the first CDO issues

Faster master!

As many of you will know our business Tarawera Publishing has been growing pretty quickly in the past couple of years. Besides www.goodreturns.co.nz and www.sharechat.co.nz we have added four print magazines to our stable (ASSET, Adviser, The NZ Mortgage Mag and The NZ Property Mag).

 

Last night the Deloittes/Unlimited Fast 50 was announced and TPL came in at number 11 on the index. The Fast 50 index measures the fastest growing companies in New Zealand Coming at number 11 isn’t bad for a Rotorua-based niche publishing business.

Other stories this week:
Long awaited tax paper delayed
A discussion paper on how to sort out tax probelms has been delayed as officials consider widening its scope.
Three managers in running for top award.
Three fund managers are in the running for FundSource's Fund Manager of the Year Awards this year. Find out who here!

Quote of the week:
“Can retail investors ever understand CDOs? No - not now and probably not ever”.

Macquarie's Craig Swanger.

Commenting is closed

 

Printable version

Email to a friend