Weekly Wrap: Tower takes out top award

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Good news for Tower today in taking out the top award in the FundSource Fund Manager of the Year Award.

Friday, October 26th 2007, 4:13PM

We have updated the original story on the site with some comments from Tower Investment boss Tony Hildyard about why he thinks they beat ING. Also there is a full list of sector winners and second place-getters on the site.

One of the developments bubbling away out of sight at the moment are changes to the industry. In the finance company sector there is a lot of talk about foreign companies coming in to buy some of the small to medium sized companies in the market.

Also this week we had an update on MFS New Zealand's plans. The company's strategy is to acquire businesses as, it believes, size and diversity in its operations will be the key to success. MFS has already acquired quite a few businesses, and the list, which is in this story, makes quite interesting reading. What's also interesting is that Vestar and some of the other assets are still owned by MFS in Australia.

As advisers know, the past quarter has been a tough one return-wise. AMP Capital gave its regular three-monthly update this week and provides its views on the outlook for the various asset classes.

Yesterday I spent some time at EUFA's meeting in Auckland to discuss the Bridgecorp collapse. Instead of a news story on this there is a Blog here. I understand EUFA are also planning a similar meeting for Christchurch.

This week Mercer put out a study on New Zealander's attitudes to KiwiSaver. We have run one story on this (saying we are ahead of Australia), but will run some others next week. The survey makes useful reading to get an idea of where people are at with this savings scheme. The signs are that it will continue to have good take up.

There is still little respite for people taking out or refinancing home loans. While the Reserve Bank yesterday left the OCR unchanged at 8.25% there is increasing talk from economists that there could be one or even two more increases, before we see falls again. This is part of the price for having a strong economy.

In the Good Returns Mortgage Centre you can see what is happening with rates. Some of the non-bank lenders are making small decreases to their two-year fixed rates, and the banks still seem to be holding off on their spring campaigns.

While the home loan market is a bit tough at the moment, (high interest rates and a 34% decline in the number of houses sold) the health insurance market is bubbling along. In the Health Funds Association's latest statistics we see that the number of New Zealanders with cover is increasing and the trend to major medical continues. A full report is here for you to read.

Have a good weekend. (And may the wind stop blowing).