Our planners 'streets ahead' of UK, USA

Australian financial planners, and the research houses they rely on, come out "streets ahead" of their British and American counterparts, according to participants on the recent Zurich World Research Tour.

Australian financial planners, and the research houses they rely on, come out "streets ahead" of their British and American counterparts, according to participants on the recent Zurich World Research Tour.

Indeed, participants found Australian financial planners to be far more sophisticated in their approach to taxation and retirement plan-ning - and their involvement far more technical.

"On the whole, we have much closer relationships with our clients than planners in the US or UK where they haven't begun to address is-sues like disclosure, risk, taxation structures and asset allocation to the extent that we do in Australia," says Money Managers managing director Kevin Bailey.

"In the UK, planners are 10 years behind us when it comes to tactical asset management."

Bailey was awarded a place on the Zurich research tour when he won the 1999 Money Management Financial Planner of the Year award.

He says in the US and UK markets, asset allocation traditionally in-volves just shares and bonds. In Australia, however, a host of areas are taken into account, including cash, regional weightings and listed property.

And, while the focus in the US and UK is largely on past performance, the spotlight in Australia is on the cyclical nature of different in-vestment institutions and their styles.

However, Bailey says Australian financial planners can learn from the way the Americans market and position themselves, as well as their focus on pricing in the wake of rising disintermediation.

Michael Este, senior investment analyst from ASSIRT and fellow tour participant, was surprised by the high standard of Australian quali-tative research compared to the UK and US.

"UK fund managers were really put on the back foot by some of ques-tions that the researchers in our group were asking," he says.

"Research over there tends to be almost exclusively quantitative - basically crunching historical numbers. In Australia, there's a lot more transparency in the way funds operate and, likewise, more accountability.