Fronting up on finance companies

Welcome back to Good Returns weekly newsletter. This newsletter is designed to give you a bit of a look into what’s been happening in the financial services market over the past week.

You have to wonder about what’s going on with some of the finance companies these days.

First up we ran a story last month about Bridgecorp and how Rapid Ratings had done a review of the business, and declared while there were a lot of good things about the company it wasn’t yet “investment grade”.

Well it transpires that many people felt it was good that the company had gone through the process and been open about its shortcomings. In fact a number of people congratulated Bridgecorp for being so open.

And one has to agree. Until now it seemed that only one finance company in New Zealand had gone through the Rapid Ratings process and that was Strategic Finance.

Not so. Apparently about six companies have had the process done – but none had said a thing about it. You can only conclude that these companies all failed to make the grade and choose not to tell the public.

Then you have the judge in Rotorua hearing the Papple ponzi scheme case. Now I’m not one to question the judiciary too much, but it’s beyond belief that a judge gives a company name suppression for being stupid.

According to the local paper, the Daily Post, a man who was a company director of a prominent finance company put, what most of use would consider a reasonably large sum of money into this scheme and lost it. The judge gives him name suppression to protect the company. Surely it would be better that the judge let us know who the man was and what company he was a director of out of public duty.

Bridgecorp rated Read the article here

Stories you should read

On Good Returns this month we have our major scene setting piece Financial Forecasts.

Financial Forecasts is a series of features which are designed to look at the year ahead and the issues advisers and investors will have to face.

In this feature, which is sponsored by the Bank of New Zealand, we cover the economy, asset classes including New Zealand and International shares and fixed interest. Also we look at the tax issues, the financial planning market, insurance and the broader industry.

This is a must read series which can be found here Financial Forecasts 2004

Also in the Special Report section of the site there is a look at Tower’s Global Gateway Fund, which won the FundSource international shares fund award late last year.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
Find out here

Insurance News
Arrow Life still in its quiver
New life company Arrow didn’t quite get off the ground this when applications closed, however the organisers reckon it’s still a goer.
Find out more about Arrow here

All you could want!
Good Returns is your one-stop shop for news, information and data on what’s happening in the personal finance world.

• JOBLINE: If you’re looking for a new job (or want to advertise for staff) visit Jobline. Click here
• THE MARKETS: Our market pages are updated daily with sharemarket and fixed interest news and prices as well as NZX announcements. The section also keeps an eye on what’s happening offshore. Visit the Markets page daily.Click here
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• Order your copy here

Quote of the week (well it was from last year actually!)
“The funds management business is always going to be bullish because that’s their business model.”
Neville Giles of Liontamer

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