KiwiSaver

Matt Nippert, a supposed investigative journalist ran a massive hit job on supposed dirty money in Kiwisaver accounts.

Apparently, there was some sort of moral, possibly illegal investment in some companies he clearly doesn’t like.

Turns out nothing illegal was done, there is no reason why these investments shouldn’t have been made and both the Police and the FMA are taking no action whatsoever.

The Police have released a statement on an investigation into whether the Cluster Munitions Act may have been breached by KiwiSaver fund managers.

“There are significant threshold issues with regard to establishing breaches of the Act, and at this stage there is no evidence to indicate offending,” the Police said.

The investigation was done in conjunction with the Financial Markets Authority.   Read more »

It’s John Oliver…Strong language advisory – headphones needed if in communal listening area.

Read more »

Unite union is cutting up rough over holiday pay.

After remaining silent for seven years on the issue they think they can make a fuss and blame the government.

Unite Union has come out swinging at companies for underpaying their workers’ holiday pay.

The union says some businesses are ignoring rules in the Holidays Act and deliberately cheating the system, and lower-paid, casual workers are once again missing out.   Read more »

(Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

Grant Robertson has laid a complaint with the Speaker’s Office, alleging that John Key misled parliament.

Prime Minister John Key is facing a breach of privilege complaint over his claim Inland Revenue told him changes to the KiwiSaver scheme “will not make a blind bit of difference” to enrolments.

Labour finance spokesman Grant Robertson said Budget papers released on Thursday showed Key had been told the opposite, and the party would make a complaint to the Speaker.

As part of the Budget, Finance Minister Bill English announced an immediate end to the $1000 payment the Government gives to anyone who signs up to KiwiSaver, known as the “kickstart” payment.

The decision, which will save $500 million over four years, immediately came under fire as cutting the incentive to join the highly popular scheme, particularly for children who are not entitled to other credits.

Questioned about the move in Parliament, a week after the May Budget, the Prime Minister said it would have no impact.

“[T]he removal of the $1,000 kick-start contribution will not make a blind bit of difference to the number of people who join KiwiSaver,” Key said on May 26.

Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei asked Key in response: “What evidence does the Prime Minister have that the sign-up rates for KiwiSaver will not be affected?”

“That is the formal advice from the Inland Revenue Department,” Key said, adding that the scheme was well organised in the workplace and providers were “extremely” well organised.

“We have got about 15,000 to 20,000 people joining in a month. I would be very, very surprised if it changes at all as a result of this.”

Read more »

So then, the NZ Super Fund dropped a nuclear bomb on the NZ financial markets late last week, by suspending Milford Asset Management from overseeing funds on behalf of the NZ public. This can only been seen as bad news for Milford as the FMA is due to report back on their enquiries soon. Clearly, the NZ Super Fund are expecting bad news for Milford.

We have also been forwarded a “panic stations” email from Milford to their clients, outlining how the allegations do not affect KiwiSaver funds. While this may be the case, there may yet be questions to answer on pumped up performance fees charged to Milford clients (which might also include their Kiwisaver clients), as the allegations over asset manipulation may have meant fund managers got extra money, paid for by their clients.

There are however, a number of things that need to be pointed out and deserve reinforcement.

Firstly Milford have claimed in a number of communications to the press that the investigations over asset manipulation relate to an “individual trader” at Milford, over “specific trades”.

This is misleading on Milford’s part. They do not employ anyone called a “trader”.  You can go see for yourself. Click through the various divisions of Milford to see all their staff members. No-one is called a trader. They do have a “dealer”, but this person only joined Milford in November of last year, well after the alleged manipulation took place.

What they are trying to mislead the public over is that the allegations may in fact apply to a Portfolio Manager, or perhaps a Private Wealth adviser. This changes the story materially. Portfolio managers or Private wealth advisers are big fish. They are the kinds of people who would give instructions on which shares, bonds and other financial products should belong in either an individual portfolio, or a large fund. They also stand to benefit from performance gains in portfolios with outperformance fees.   Read more »

Yet again, Brian Gaynor of the besieged financial firm Milford Asset Management has his weekly column published in the NZ Herald, despite the NZ Super Fund taking the unprecedented step of suspending Milford from running any investment mandates for them.

You will recall the FMA is investigating Milford Asset Management staff and transactions for alleged manipulation of share prices for their fund and personal gain.    Read more »

Milford Asset Management says it has contacted other KiwiSaver fund managers to explain an “inadvertent breach of conventions” in Google search terms used for marketing purposes.

This comes after rival fund manager Fisher Funds lodged a complaint about Milford’s use of its brand in a so-called “ambush marketing” campaign where it used other KiwiSaver providers’ names to try to attract potential customers to its own website by paying for search words.

Hence, when someone typed “Fisher kiwisaver” into Google, an ad for “Milford Fisher KiwiSaver” topped the search list with a link to the Milford website.

“It has never been our intention to use such tactics in our marketing,” Milford managing director Anthony Quirk said today.

Except that you were.   And this is yet another incident in Milford Asset Management’s murky existence.  You have to love it – a business that depends on trust more than most, and they simply don’t appear to care unless they’re caught.   Read more »

Weekend readers will have read the article covering the unethical behaviour of Milford Asset Manipulator’s ambush marketing of its competitors here.

The Whaleoil army can wave a victory flag this afternoon.

Milford Asset Manipulators have pulled all their Google ads where they attempted to manipulate the public into clicking into their link.

NBR is reporting:

Milford Asset Management’s woes continue as a rival fund manager lodges a fresh complaint to the FMA about ambush marketing of KiwiSaver services.

Fisher Funds boss Carmel Fisher says she is disgusted at Milford’s apparent deliberate misuse of the Fisher brand name through a Google AdWords marketing campaign.

Milford appears to have used the Fisher name to try to attract potential customers to its own website by paying for search words.

Hence, when someone typed “Fisher kiwisaver” into Google, an ad for “Milford Fisher Kiwisaver” topped the search list with a link to the Milford website.

Similar outcomes were experienced for fellow providers Generate and ANZ’s OneAnswer KiwiSaver scheme.

Milford has pulled the campaign, which was highlighted by Cameron Slater’s Whale Oil blog yesterday.    Read more »

The tip line is running hot with financial industry people contacting us with snippets of unethical practices by Milford Asset Murkiness, excuse me, Management. Thank you for the tips – we are working to ensure the FMA is made aware of some of the alleged behaviour of Milford.

One of the more intriguing tipoffs is the proven ambush marketing Milford are engaging in with paid Google search.

There is widespread abuse by Milford in ambush marketing using Google search. This is where they use the name of one of their competitors in their own paid search result to try and confuse the person searching about Kiwisaver.

For example, one of the smaller but fast growing Kiwisaver funds operators is a firm called Generate. I’ve never heard of them before now, but they’re obviously getting some traction as they’ve won some awards recently. But tellingly, they are the victim of Milford’s ambush marketing.

If you go to Google and search for “Generate Kiwisaver”, the first link that comes up is an ad for Milford. That’s not surprising, companies will often invest heavily in making sure their own name comes up ahead of competitors in Google searches relevant to their industry.

But what the Milford Ad says is very interesting and raises questions about their ethics.

Apparently, they call themselves in their ad “Milford Generate Kiwisaver”.

Read more »

Cullen was generally regarded as a steady steward of the nation’s funds, although many who said so conveniently ignored the fact he did so during an economic boom time when he had no idea what to do with all the money coming out of the tax payer fountain.

Upon his departure, the purchase of KiwiRail at the blunt end of $2B was as cynical as it was an act of sabotage.

But all through this period, and until recently, people still thought kindly of him when talking about KiwiSaver.

That myth just fell apart too.

KiwiSaver tax credits cost more than $800 million a year but careful analysis by Treasury economists of the best data we have on household finances can find no evidence it has boosted the accumulation of wealth, a key objective of the scheme.

Research by David Law and Grant Scobie published by the Treasury examined data from Statistics New Zealand’s longitudinal Survey of Family, Income and Employment (SoFIE).

Their first look at SoFIE found that between 2008 (the first “wave” of data after KiwiSaver was introduced in 2007) and 2010 (the last before it was discontinued) both members and non-members of KiwiSaver increased their savings, defined as net wealth or assets minus liabilities.

But non-members fared better than members, averaging an increase of $32,000 or twice that recorded by KiwiSaver members.

In English – people who avoided KiwiSaver and made their own arrangements are better off than the state-run semi-compulsory scheme that was supposed to save us (heh) from ourselves. Read more »