Kathy Valentine
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Jessica Galehouse
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GIPS Executive Committee Announces New Council and Verification/Practitioner Chairs
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., July 24, 2008 – The nine-member GIPS Executive Committee (EC), the decision-making body for the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS®), announced today the addition of two new members: Neil Riddles, CFA, CIPM, and Carl Bacon, CIPM.
Riddles was elected to chair the GIPS Council and succeeds Hans-Joerg von Euw. The GIPS Council is the collective body of 30 GIPS country sponsors, each of whom has a seat on the GIPS Council. The Council works with regional subcommittees to represent the interests of the region and encourage national and regional support for the EC in the development, promulgation, and maintenance of the GIPS standards. View the GIPS organizational structure.
Riddles serves as chief risk officer and director of quantitative analysis at Hansberger Global Investors, Inc. and brings more than 20 years of direct investment performance experience to the GIPS EC. Since 1993, he has been involved with the GIPS standards and has served on eight GIPS Committees over the past 15 years. Riddles believes that “a set of ethical presentation standards has made performance information more comparable, benefiting potential clients as well as ethical firms, who desire a level playing field. Having one global set of performance standards is especially helpful as it limits costs and facilitates cross border marketing of investment services”.
Jonathan Boersma, CFA, executive director of the GIPS standards at CFA Institute, said “Neil will contribute his long history of understanding the practical challenges investment firms face when complying with the GIPS standards and his extensive professional experience.”
Bacon was appointed to chair the Verification/Practitioner Subcommittee, succeeding Yoh Kuwabara. He serves as chair of UK-based StatPro Group plc, and has contributed to the development and promotion of the GIPS standards since 1995. Bacon is recognized as an expert on performance measurement issues and has authored multiple books, including most recently, Practical Portfolio Performance Measurement and Attribution.
“I am a keen supporter of self-regulation and fully endorse the importance of fair representation, full disclosure and the ethical umbrella under which the GIPS standards have been developed” stated Bacon.
Boersma noted that “Carl brings in-depth understanding of investment performance issues, continuity with the past, ability to promote the Standards worldwide, and a pragmatic, global approach to the ongoing development of the GIPS standards.”
In related news, Sunette Mulder was selected as the next chair of the EC, succeeding Stefan J. Illmer. She is head of performance at Cadiz African Harvest Asset Management in Cape Town, South Africa. Mulder is responsible for the firm’s performance measurement, attribution, and reporting practices. Mulder also serves as the chair of the GIPS Standing Committee of the South African country sponsor, the Investment Manager Association of South Africa (IMASA). In this capacity she is the South African country sponsor representative on the Europe, Middle East, and Africa Regional Investment Performance Subcommittee (EMEA RIPS) and the GIPS Council. Mulder serves as chair of the Investment Manager Subcommittee and represents that constituency at the GIPS EC.
“The GIPS standards are increasingly recognized as the standard to be used by investment managers for quantifying and presenting fair and transparent disclosure and comparisons,” said Mulder. “I look forward to continuing the success of the Executive Committee and to widening the awareness and use of the Standards. In the end, adherence to the GIPS standards is in all investors’ best interests.”
GIPS Executive Committee:
The purpose of the nine-member Executive Committee (EC) is to promote the adoption and implementation of a single investment performance presentation standard – the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS®) – throughout the world as the common method for calculating and presenting investment performance. The GIPS standards are a set of ethical principles that establish a standardized, industry-wide approach to how investment firms should calculate and report their investment results to prospective clients. The EC serves as the effective decision-making authority for the GIPS standards and replaces the former Investment Performance Council (IPC).
CFA Institute and the CFA Institute Centre for Financial Market Integrity:
CFA Institute is the global, not-for-profit professional association that administers the Chartered Financial Analyst® (CFA®) curriculum and examination program worldwide, publishes research, conducts professional-development programs, and sets voluntary, ethics-based professional and performance-reporting standards for the investment industry. The CFA Institute Centre is the research, policy, and advocacy division of CFA Institute, which has more than 96,000 members in 134 countries and territories. More information may be found at www.cfainstitute.org. (Bloomberg users can find CFA Institute at 497458Z).