Primary Securities Ltd
ABN 96 089 812 635
AFSL No 224107
Tel (618) 9430 5262
Fax (618) 9430 5552
Email us
Complaints
A responsible entity has the primary responsibility to operate a managed investment scheme and to perform functions conferred on it by the Corporations Act 2001, the Constitution and the Compliance Plan in relation to the scheme.It is the responsible entity that issues the product disclosure statement for the scheme. The responsible entity acts as trustee and overall operator or supervisor of the scheme for the purpose of protecting investors.
A managed investment scheme is any pooled direct investment in a venture that is managed by some other person. A direct investment is an investment where you are directly involved in the business or property as one of its owners or beneficial owners, or in which you are directly contracting for services to be carried out on your behalf. Holding shares or debentures in a company is not a direct investment, but is indirect because you do not own the business or automatically receive profits from the business. You only receive such dividends as the directors determine or an agreed rate. Examples of managed investment schemes are:
No managed investment can be offered other than through a responsible entity which holds an Australian Financial Services Licence entitling it to offer that managed investment or managed investments of that type. To obtain an Australian Financial Services Licence, a proposed responsible entity must assemble a board of directors and experts who demonstrably have the relevant expertise and experience in the area of managed investments and the proposed field of activity. The process of applying for such a dealer's licence is expensive and time consuming.
Before any scheme can be registered, a constitution and compliance plan must be lodged which sets out in great detail the statutory obligations to be complied with, the risks involved for investors in relation to the relevant activity and how the responsible entity proposes to meet those obligations and risks. These documents are scrutinised by ASIC officers.
The responsible entity must take out PI insurance to protect the officers of the responsible entity in relation to the scheme. These policies are very expensive and in assessing the premium, the insurance company takes into account whether or not the directors of the responsible entity are independent of the manager of the scheme and their level of experience in relation to such schemes. The responsible entity must appoint a compliance officer who is able to devote the necessary time to compliance matters.
The responsible entity must also appoint a compliance committee of experts in the field which meets regularly to ensure that the responsible entity is complying with its statutory obligations in relation to each scheme.
The responsible entity must also appoint compliance auditors to check on the work of the responsible entity and the compliance committee as well as financial auditors. The responsible entity must join a complaints resolution scheme.
Yes, because without us you will have to pay much more for PI and officers' insurance, for the custodian, for auditors and scheme auditors, for independent experts and all other services required by you. We are able to keep costs low by bulk deals and by economies of scale. Every process you have to conduct will be more expensive and time consuming because you are doing it once or only a few times whilst we will inevitably have done it before and will be able to it again cheaply and efficiently. Every time there is a change in the law concerning managed investments, you can be sure that we are confronting that change and dealing with it.
The managed investment regime was designed to make it more efficient for very large scale fund managers by allowing the functions of trustee and fund manager to be combined in a single responsible entity. To compensate for the higher risk of having a single responsible entity, the legislation, administered by ASIC, provides a very strict compliance regime. As a result, we believe that Australia has the most severe regime in the world for managed investments. It is particularly expensive for those running a managed investment scheme who are not very large scale fund managers. That is why using Primary Securities Ltd will give you the necessary confidence that your compliance obligations are being met.
The payment of fees to the responsible entity are covered by the terms and conditions of your investment. For further information please contact the responsible entity. No refunds are payable except in the case of overpayments made in error.