Weekly Wrap: People on the move

One of the things we strive to do at Good Returns is provide readers with the freshest news in the financial services industry.

Friday, June 15th 2007, 3:41PM

Recent Weekly Wrap’s had news of changes at TOWER with its New Zealand shares team and also the retirement of Marshall Garrett from planning group Broadbase.

This week we can reveal that Brook Asset Management is about to get a new managing director.

Marshall’s retirement from Broadbase also potentially signals changes at the group – more on this in today’s Blog.

Also amongst the planning industry it has been interesting to watch the on-going consolidation. The latest developments are the further grouping of the Grosvenor group.

Tranzact, the ASX-listed entity which is almost 60%-owned by Grosvenor, has merged the two advisory practices it bought in April with another two Rutherford Rede businesses.

The finance company and deposit taking sector continues to generate plenty of news. A fascinating story is how Instant Finance dodged a bullet fired directly at it. The story is well worth a read as are the comments in Phil’s Blog.

Drive by shootings in the industry
Yesterday’s story about a compliant against Instant Finance’s advertising raises a couple of issues. [more]

Listed property trusts have been a good yielding defensive asset to hold in portfolios over the years. With the introduction of PIE tax changes the sector is morphing. We have one view on this from Goldman Sachs JB Were. They suggest the sector will be more volatile and trusts with developments are ones which can add shareholder value.

On the People front we record the interesting changes at the IFA Board, and report on a new business development manager at the Auckland Mortgage Trust. Added to this we have news of a bit of role swapping at Fidelity Life and a new investment appointment at GS JBWere.

Also in Insurance News we have a useful piece on what the hot jobs are in the insurance sector. This piece also gives you an idea how much underwriters and business development managers are getting paid. The other insurance news story of note is changes to Tower Health and Life’s application process.

KiwiSaver is dominating news. If you are interested in KiwiSaver then you need to get your hands on this week’s issue of ASSET. It includes a full report on how advisers are planning to provide advice in this area, plus has results from our exclusive survey of advisers.

Also in the June ASSET is a comprehensive survey of home equity release schemes.

To get your hands on ASSET either call 0800-345675 or send an email to mags@assetmagazine.co.nz