Ashford W. Meikle, Staff Reporter
THREE LOCAL financial companies are currently in negotiations with CI Investments to offer the Canadian company's mutual funds, the Financial Gleaner has learned.
According to an informed source, investment firm, Dehring, Bunting and Golding (DB&G), along with the Jamaica National Building Society (JNBS) will, in a matter of weeks, begin to offer CI's Corporate Class of funds and could be joined by RBTT Bank as soon as the latter finalises its negotiations with CI Investments.
The second largest publicly traded fund management company in Canada, CI investments has over Cdn$54 billion under management and about two million customers. The Corporate Class of Funds is the only one of the CI's funds to be registered in Jamaica, particularly because of its tax-free status for non-Canadian citizens.
The company first offered its funds to the Jamaican public in the latter part of last year when First Global Financial Services (FGFS) was given an exclusive three-month contract to market the funds. The president of CI Funds, Ray Chang, sits on the board of GraceKenendy which is the parent company of FGFS.
DISTRIBUTION AGREEMENT
When the First Global contract expired this year, Mayberry Investments announced that it had entered into an agreement with CI to distribute the latter's mutual funds. In fact, in recent weeks both First Global and Mayberry have been jostling through aggressive marketing of the funds.
Contacted by the Financial Gleaner yesterday, executive chairman of DB&G, Peter Bunting, confirmed his company's negotiations with CI. "We are in discussion with CI Investments and we anticipate we will be able to offer the fund soon," Bunting said, while declining to go into details. No comments were forthcoming from RBTT or Jamaica National.
President of FGFS, Sandra Shirley, said her company was aware that CI would enter into agreements with other securities dealers. "It was an understanding from the outset that they would increase the distribution with other dealers. That's their [CI's] business model - they wholesale their funds and then they identify distributors to do the retailing." She added that "the important thing to note is that we were the firm selected for the approval of the funds, initially."
She is not worried about the competition, noting that First Global already has a competitive edge.
"CI Funds is just one of the multifaceted services in the range of financial options offered by First Global. We still have our proprietary regional bond fund."
