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(June 30, 2006) Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has confirmed the appointment of Bryan Davies as chair of the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Davies, the former head of FSCO, Ontario’s insurance regulator, will serve a five-year term as CDIC chair.

“With his tremendous experience in the financial sector as a supervisor and policy-maker, and as a senior banking executive, Mr. Davies will play a key role in providing direction for CDIC in the coming years,” Flaherty said.

The minister recommended Davies for the post in May, but the appointment had to be rubber-stamped by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance.

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Raymond James slapped with half-million dollar fine

(June 30, 2006) Supervisory and reporting errors that amounted to $836 will cost Raymond James and one of its managers more than $500,000 in fines.

Raymond James will pay a fine of $400,000 plus an additional $125,000 in costs while one the firm’s managers will pay a $50,000 fine and be prohibited from acting in a supervisory role for one year under a settlement agreement reached with Market Regulation Services (RS).

Between February 2003 and February 2005 Raymond James traders, under the supervision of Marc Deslongchamps, contravened several regulations that resulted in numerous client priority, audit trail and order marking violations.

According to the agreed statement of facts, Raymond James did not have a system in place to prevent these actions. At the same time, the firms’ compliance officer used a flawed methodology to test for client priority issues.

A total of about 16 or 17 client priority issues, six client consent, eight or nine audit trail violations were recorded by RS. As a result, Raymond James’ clients were “price disadvantaged” to the tune of $836, RS found.

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Life insurance group names new executive director

(June 30, 2006) LOMA Canada has announced the appointment of Ross Turney as executive director, effective immediately. Turney is the former director of communications for National Life Assurance Company of Canada and associate director of marketing communications for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

“We’re very excited about Ross’ appointment as executive director of LOMA Canada,” stated Thomas P. Donaldson, FLMI, CLU, president and CEO of LOMA. “He has had great success generating results-oriented marketing initiatives. This experience will help insurance and financial services companies throughout Canada realize the solid return-on-investment they can gain by increasing professional development opportunities for their employees.”

LOMA Canada is a non-profit association representing the country’s life and health insurance industry.

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Worldsource to offer PWBank GICs

(June 30, 2006) Pacific & Western Bank of Canada (PWBank) has announced a distribution deal with Worldsource Financial Management for the bank’s GICs.

“We are pleased to have the opportunity to offer our GICs and high interest savings accounts to Worldsource’s clients,” said David Taylor, president and CEO of parent company, Pacific & Western Credit Corp. “This new relationship furthers our corporate strategy to diversify and expand our deposit base.”

Worldsource has over 90 offices, 80,000 clients and $4.8 billion in assets under administration. PWBank is a branchless Schedule I chartered bank with over $1.2 billion in assets.

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ScotiaMcLeod scraps Pinnacle Global fund

(June 30, 2006) ScotiaMcLeod has announced it will streamline its product lineup by winding down the Pinnacle Global Tactical Asset Allocation Fund, on or about September 1, 2006.

Effective immediately, Scotia McLeod will not accept new purchases into the Fund, including purchases pursuant to pre-authorized contributions. Redemptions will be processed until the termination date.

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CI completes trust conversion

(June 30, 2006) CI Financial has completed its transformation from a corporation into an income trust, announcing the official name change to CI Financial Income Fund.

“With the conversion, we have become one of the largest income trusts in Canada by market capitalization,” said Bill Holland, CI’s CEO. “We have significantly enhanced the value of the company and laid a solid foundation for a new phase in CI’s growth.”

Each common shareholder of CIX stock will receive units of the new CIX.UN trust, or units of Class B limited partner unit of Canadian International LP, on a one-for-one basis. The LP units are exchangeable into Trust Units after January 1, 2007.

The trust has announced an initial distribution of 16.75 cents per unit and per exchangeable LP unit, payable July 14, 2006 to holders of record on July 10, 2006.

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