Survivor: And the Felsy gong goes to….

I love this time of year. The fund managers have new budgets to spend, the kids are back at school and thus the power bill’s gonna plummet, the phone bill will tumble and all’s well with the world. Well, apart from that war thing, of course.

It’s the time of year when all the awards are dished out. The AB medal (you little beauty, Gilchrist), the Golden Glob awards, the Lurgies and, of course, the Oz-Cars — similar to the Summer Nats, with good-looking girls and blokes, dressed up like idiots, drinking well into the night.

This year is going to be even better with the Australian Consumers’ Association (ACA) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) combining forces to bring us their own awards. Ladies and gentlemen, we bring you (drum roll) the Felsies. Named after the soon to be retired chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), more than 500 tickets to the presentation night had been sold by the guys down atChoiceand on the ASIC info line — until they confirmed that Alan himself was going to repeat his keynote address to the 2001 FPA convention. At that point, everyone demanded their money back and there was a mad scramble down at ASIC to determine what the refund policy was.

“Let the bastards sue us” was the catch-cry until David Knott appeared and pointed out that an enforceable undertaking imposed by ASIC on its own info line wasn’t a good look.

Tragically, the whole shindig had to be cancelled and the olive oil, ostrich sausages and pine nuts, served on a lovely tea-tree plate had to be tossed out. Fortunately, they saved the wines, hoping they might be able to sell them to the Treasury Department in June.

Nonetheless, dear readers, we here atMoney Managementare not about to let you down. In spite of the night being cancelled, in conjunction with the ACA, ASIC, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and any other agency or group that feels like jumping on the bandwagon,Money Managementbrings you the Felsies — or at least, some of them.

Dedicated to the brave 159 advisers who, unbeknownst to them, were being shadow shopped by the experts. Frankly, you’d have thought that a client wearing a thick black coat on a 40-degree day, who keeps leaning over the desk so that the lapel of their jacket with a mysterious plastic chrysanthemum is five inches from your lip would be a bit sus. But, ours is not to reason why people take on nutters. Hell, I am sure most of you remember Mr Z who kept visiting me with his dogs. (Watching the Michael Jackson special made me realise that people do strange things…)

Those who fell for the trap should have read the fridge magnet about observation. Me, I’m ‘alert’ but not ‘alarming’. I now refuse to see people unless they’re prepared to undergo a strip search. That usually gets them ‘very alert’ and ‘very alarmed’.

But I digress. TheSpecial Effects Felsygoes to AMP. Particularly for its ability to make things disappear — three chief executives, a banking division, 1,500 jobs, $1 billion and $10 off its share value — not bad. George W should employ AMP to deal with Iraq.

TheBest Costume Felsygoes to Westpac. Never have we seen so many brands undergoing such a rapid transformation in such a short space of time. BT, Westpac, Rothshild — SA-KA-TA (that bloody jingle again). I have an idea that if you combine all of the names into one by taking one or two letters from each name, you could come up with an appropriate name that reflects the sentiment of their customers: Wankropacatrust.

TheBest Supporting Felsygoes to the paraplanners. We know you guys are the brains behind the outfit but you deliberately conspire to see your bosses’ names onToday Tonight.

And finally, the Felsy for theBest Pitchergoes to the board of Challenger for pitching the deal that got Kerry Packer and a part of his chopper pilot on the board.

You have to hand it to Kerry, he’s good. Word is already out that later in the year Eddie McGuire will be heading upWho Wants to Receive an AnnuityPayment? All the pensioners can ring in and answer questions about Collingwood to determine if their annuity payment will double for every correct answer. If they bomb out, all of their funds are transferred to ipac.

In case the concept of the Felsy is new to you, let’s explain how the awards are worked out.

The ACA has a group of its members who are sent out in the field to visit various planners. Each planner then prepares a different plan, which goes back to a panel that compares them all. They then apply a process of re-weighting using the following equation.

Score = _ _(__ _ _)2+ 1

This of course translates to the well-known equation that anyone with a basic knowledge of math should recognise:

Score = B4i_U RU(insured)

Well used in teaching to determine a common exam mark, it allows you to take 159 different test results by 159 different students who have sat 159 different exam papers and compare them against each other. From here we can apply this to the normal distribution curve and identify grades.

From this sample of 159 different students who have produced 159 different plans, we can now extrapolate this data to the remaining 20,000 students and apply the same grades to them as well. From here, we can assume that 70 per cent of all students fail.

Bloody simple, so there!