Westpac-owned dealer group Securitor will tighten its rules for asset allocation to agricultural managed investment schemes (MIS) following the collapse of Great Southern.

"Our guidelines were previously that you could never have more than 10 per cent of clients' money invested in MIS projects," BT Financial head of dealer groups and licensee select Neil Younger told InvestorDaily.
 
"We're even going further defensively on that and looking to reduce that 10 per cent exposure to 5 per cent."

Securitor has also asked its research providers to provide additional analysis on the solvency of groups offering these schemes.

"At this stage they continue to be on our APL [approved products list]," Younger said.

Securitor has a small exposure to the collapsed agribusiness Great Southern.
 
"We've got a minimal amount of business in Great Southern, most of which we've inherited over the years as planners moved between dealer groups," Younger said.

"Great Southern didn't feature prominently on our APL, neither within the Securitor business nor the Magnitude business, for the last five years."

In 2007, the amount of new business being written by Securitor advisers relating to the agricultural MIS sector was about $3 million.

This compares with a total of $2.4 billion in new funds under management for the dealer group that year.

"Our planners write well in excess of $3 million a year by themselves," Younger said. "We write very little agri-MIS business."