Thieves target funds management house

By Philip Macalister

Burglars have broken into the offices of one of New Zealand's more successful and most secretive fund managers, and stolen sensitive material about its 27,000 clients and operations.

The break-in occurred in New Zealand Funds Management's offices in the ANZ Centre in downtown Auckland.

The building is also the home of other financial services firms including BT Funds Management, ANZ Funds Management and CS First Boston.

NZ Funds director Gerald Siddall says the burglars stole back-up tapes that include registry information for all its clients, plus some details about the company's systems. He says the burglars used force to remove the equipment from the offices.

Although the burglars have taken sensitive information it is probably of little use because the computers were only half way through the back up when the theft took place.

"The information will be corrupted in some way. It certainly won't be readable," he says.

Siddall says it is a mystery who would commit such a crime, but it would become obvious if the thief used the information to contact NZ Funds' clients.

Siddall doesn't believe the crooks were trying to stop NZ Funds. If that was their intent they would have smashed all the computers.

The third theory is that a competitor, eager to learn how NZ Funds works, organised the crime. Siddall again rules this out.

"To say it was more sinister [than bad luck] would be to disparage the ethics of my competitors - that I would never do. I don't see it as a competitive issue against us," Siddall says.

Siddall also dismisses the industrial espionage theory on the grounds that NZ Funds' systems, while very good, aren't necessarily the key to the business. He says the success of the business lies in the intellectual capital in the firm.

"They would have to open our heads to find that out."