"Great concern regarding the comments made at the inquiry today....

"Great concern regarding the comments made at the inquiry today. The aloofness and ambiguity of the answers are whats driving the SP down. Took my loss. Re-enter at a later time. Have a read of the inquiry's summary. It would appear that this is not going away anytime soon."

@garyrace,

The problem with the media is that it is exactly that: a medium.

And as such, it's very existence depends on creating sensations and dramas where none exist.

For that is what underscores the print media's commercial model, i.e., the selling of newspapers.

In the case of IFL the sensation and drama was made manifest by the media as a "scandal", one which unsuspecting investors - somewhat understandably - interpreted as having potential to irreparably damage the IOOF business and brands.

When, in fact, the "scandal" involved little more than a handful of rogue employees employed within one of many of IFL's operating business units.

The problem with journalism is that - if it is taken seriously - it more often than not leads to poor investing decisions.

In the case of IFL, I sense that there are investors who, like you, became unnerved by some of the dramatic hyperbole that surrounded IFL in the media a few months ago. And they then proceeded to sell their shares on the back of it.

And today, when IFL reports that the business franchise remains totally unaffected (See [*] below) by the entire "trial-by-media" saga, it begs the question as to whether there should be any accountability on the part of the media that not only reported the facts, but clearly provided accompanying judgments on the matter; and then those judgments turned out to be plain wrong.

Those who incurred financial loss because of this flawed over-extension on the part of the media... how do they get made whole?

Or is the media - hidden behind the barricade of "free speech" - exempt from the exact incompetence of which it is being so stridently critical?



[*] Despite alarmist predictions of permanent goodwill damage and terminal breaches of trust, IOOF today reported Net Fund Inflows of $1.24bn, to $120bn for the Sept Quarter, 2015 ($115m into IOOF Platforms, $617m into IOOF's Investment Management businesses and $509m into IOOF's Advisory operations).

And it isn't merely a seasonal influence; compared with pcp, the inflows are also higher: at 30 Sept, 2015 IOOF's Total Funds Under Advice, Platforms, Investment Management, and Supervision totaled $148.8bn. This is 4.1% higher than at 30 Sept, 2014. This is despite the market having fallen by 6.1% over that 12-month period,