EDITORIAL

This issue, as promised, has a strong theme of responsible investing. It’s a theme we have had an interest in for literally decades. I recall attending RI conferences in Australia 20-plus years ago!

Back then when we wrote pieces around responsible investing they got little cut through. The biggest hurdle was the perception that investing “ethically” meant accepting lower returns.

This has demonstrably shown to be untrue – look at the performance of New Zealand’s leading responsible manager Pathfinder. There is now plenty of evidence to debunk this myth.

We now see a heightened interest in responsible investing articles and features.

To give you some insight into this area of investing we have profiled Peter Lee in this issue. Peter won the Mindful Money Ethical Financial Planner of the Year award a couple of months ago.

It’s an interesting read. Perhaps the thing that is most concerning is that there are not enough financial planners embracing responsible investing in their practices.

This seems a little odd as so many fund managers are promoting their offerings on how “good” their portfolios are. They do this because that is what investors are demanding.

Maybe it is time more financial advisers stepped up to the mark in this area?

One of the other things I wanted to highlight is our news story about Generate KiwiSaver’s research into fees. The simple synopsis of this is that New Zealand fees are competitive, and in many cases, lower than comparable fees in Australia and the United Kingdom.

We have heard the Financial Markets Authority bleating on, many times, about fees. Sure fees are important but it is time the debate and discussion moved on to how advice is incorporated into KiwiSaver and contribution rates.

Getting these things right will be more important to KiwiSaver members than the current monologue from the regulator.

Interestingly, when we asked for an interview on Generate’s report they declined.

Recently I had the pleasure of attending a number of conferences; SiFA, Financial Advice NZ and Wealthpoint.

One of my observations is that despite all this change in financial advice, people seem pretty upbeat.

Also, advisers and others in the industry are happy to be out and mingling with one another after years of Covid inspired madness.

It’s also heartening to see a high level of support from providers.

By the time you get this issue the Financial Markets Authority’s “quasi” deadline for licensing applications will have passed.

It has said if applications are not in by the end of September, there is no guarantee they will be processed by the licensing deadline which comes towards the end of March next year.

Frankly, it’s hard to see how the regulator can make such a statement which simply implies it has brought the deadline forward when the law sets a date for March.

No doubt we have interesting times ahead.

Keep well.

1448A Hinemoa Street, Rotorua PO Box 2011, Rotorua P: 07 349 1920 F: 07 349 1926 E: philip@tarawera.co.nz

Philip Macalister

Dawn Pickens, Russell Hutchinson, Graeme Lindsay, David Van Schaardenburg

Jing Tao P: 07 349 1920 E: subscriptions@tarawera.co.nz

ASSET is published by Tarawera Publishing Ltd (TPL). TPL also publishes online money management magazine Good Returns GoodReturns.co.nz and TMM – The Mortgage Mag. All contents of ASSET Magazine are copyright Tarawera Publishing Ltd. Any reproduction without prior written permission is strictly prohibited. ISSN 1175-9585

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