Weekly Wrap: Another firm gobbled up

Another week, another financial planning firm sold. It seems at the moment that there is at least one financial planning firm a week being gobbled up by large corporates.

Friday, April 13th 2007, 10:43AM

MFS yesterday announced that it has bought all of Colin Strang's Dunedin financial planning firm. Recently it also acquired Ken Swain's business.

A couple of observations are that MFS now has a pretty strong presence from Christchurch south. Secondly it seems the bottom of the South Island is where the big deals are happening. The other recent one of note was ING's purchase of a stake in Ricky Bennett's business.

Don't expect these to be the last deals for a while. Good Returns is aware of a number of other transactions which could be completed in the near future.

Meanwhile another story catching out attention this week was the launch of an IPO by Australian fund manager Platinum.

Platinum, run by Kerr Nielson has been a popular fund with many advisers in New Zealand. It has delivered strong returns over a long period of time. However, it is not the only fund to do that. Hunter Hall recently pointed out to us that its return has been just as good as Platinum's numbers.

Sticking with the change theme, Good Returns reported earlier in the week that the merger between the Professional Advisors Association and the Life Brokers Association has passed its first major hurdle.

The other big deal of the week, and again another one which flags further change, is consumer lending business Instant Finance securing a $50 million funding line. This money maybe used to help the company acquire other finance companies.

Home loans and economics remain high on the mainstream media's radar at the moment. Rates have risen steeply in recent weeks, and now appear to be taking a breather. Economic news during the week suggests that there could be two more increases in the official cash rate this year.
A totally different prospect to what we were facing a week or so earlier.

You can keep track of what is happening at Good Returns' Mortgage Centre. Also check out the latest Home Loan Report.

Following the departure of Anthony Quirk from Tyndall we have the first monthly market report from his current replacement Peter Lynn. In it he comments on how the calm in international markets has been broken and what it means.

The one announcement in People this week is about who will lead the PAA for the next year.