All investors' money is held in trust by a custodian who is appointed by an independent Supervisor. The custodian and supervisor are completely independent of Fisher Funds.

Fisher Funds' role is to manage  money in line with the Statement of Investment Policy and Objectives ('SIPO') of each fund. It is important to note that no investors' money is invested in Fisher Funds itself. Fisher Funds simply charges a fee for the investment management service it performs. The following information provides a further explanation on the structure of our funds.

Investments in each fund are pooled together and investors receive units in the fund(s) in proportion to the amount of money they have contributed. Each business day those investments are independently valued and a new unit price is calculated. That is the price used for 'withdrawal of existing units or purchase of new units. All of each fund's net asset value is reflected in the unit price or paid as a distribution to investors. We don't "reserve" funds to smooth returns over multiple years.

Fisher Funds uses the services of the following specialist service providers:

Trustees Executors Limited (New Zealand's oldest supervisor company) acts as Supervisor for the funds' investors. Their sole function is to protect the interests of investors. They are responsible for ensuring that Fisher Funds meets its obligations to investors including checking that the funds' investments comply with the SIPO for each fund. Fisher Funds must also provide regular reporting to the supervisor confirming that we have acted in accordance with the relevant Governing Document. Trustees Executors Limited administers and supervises over $100 billion of investors' assets.

TEA Custodians Limited (a subsidiary of Trustees Executors Limited) acts as Custodian for the funds' assets and settling agent for the funds' transactions. In international markets where TEA Custodians Limited does not have a presence, they use Citibank or State Street as their custodial agent. They regularly reconcile all bank accounts and investment holdings back to the underlying share registries, so that they know all the assets are real and are held in their name.

Trustees Executors Limited is responsible for the funds' accounting function including unit price calculations and for maintaining our registers of unit holders.

Trustees Executors' custody and investment accounting systems, processes and controls are reviewed by Deloitte semi-annually and we receive these reports as part of our service agreement.

In addition all Fisher Funds managed funds are audited annually by KPMG and investors receive a copy of the funds' audited accounts following the end of the March financial year. Their audit work includes independently confirming all bank account balances and investment holdings with the relevant registrar at year end.

The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) is an independent Crown entity responsible for regulating New Zealand's financial markets and its participants, including Fisher Funds.

Fisher Funds is not a finance company. We invest money on behalf of investors and don't lend money to anybody. Finance companies receive money from investors and they in turn lend this money out at higher interest rates to companies or individuals who use this funding for activities such as property development. The finance company is then dependent upon the borrower making their interest payments along the way and repaying the capital at the end of the loan term in order to be able to honour its commitments to investors. If the borrower gets into financial difficulties this can affect their ability to repay the finance company and in turn affect payment of interest and capital back to investors. This is the scenario that unfolded several years ago when a large number of finance companies were put into receivership.

Investing in managed funds does come with risks however. These risks are detailed in PDS and in the "Other material information" documents for each of our managed investment schemes. See the Resources section of this website for copies of these documents.