Stephanie Mackley is a portfolio manager for Durango Wealth Management (DWM), a regional money manager catering to wealthy investors in the southwestern portion of the United States. Mackley's clients vary widely in terms of their age, net worth, and investment objectives, but all must have at least $1 million in net assets before she will accept them as clients.
Many of Mackley’s clients are referred to her by Kern & Associates, an accounting and consulting firm. DWM does not provide any direct compensation to Kern & Associates for the referrals, but Mackley’s who is the president of her local CFA Society, invites Kern & Associates to give an annual presentation to the society on the subject of tax planning and minimization strategies that Kern & Associates provides for its clients. Kern & Associates' competitors have never received an invitation to present their services to the society. When Mackley receives a referral, she informs the prospect of the arrangement between DWM and Kern & Associates.
DWM maintains a full research staff that analyzes and recommends equity and debt investments. All of the in- house research is provided to the firm's portfolio managers and their clients. In addition, DWM provides a subscription service to outside investors and portfolio managers. Aaron Welch, CFA, a private contractor, researches and reports on high-tech firms in the U.S. and other developed countries for several portfolio management clients. One of his latest reports rated InnerTech Inc., a small startup that develops microscopic surgical devices, as a strong buy. After reviewing the report carefully, Mackley decides to purchase shares of InnerTech for clients with account values over $6 million. She feels that accounts with less than this amount cannot accept the risk level associated with InnerTech stock.
Two days after purchasing InnerTech for her clients, the stock nearly doubles in value, and the clients are ecstatic about the returns on their portfolios. Several of them give her small bouquets of flowers and boxes of chocolates, which she discloses to her supervisor at DWM. One client even offers her the use of a condo in Vail, Colorado for two weeks during ski season, if she can reproduce the results next quarter. Mackley graciously thanks her clients and asks that they refer any of their friends and relatives who are in need of asset management services. She provides brochures to a few clients who mention that they have friends who would be interested. The brochure contains a description of Mackley's services and her qualifications. At the end of the brochure, Mackley includes her full name followed by "a Chartered Financial Analyst" in bold font of the same size as her name Following is An excerpt from the brochure:
"DWM can provide many of the investment services you are likely to need. For those services that we do not provide directly, such as estate planning, we have standing relationships with companies that do provide such services. 1 have a long history with DWM, serving as an investment analyst for six years and then in my current capacity as a portfolio manager for twelve years. My clients have been very satisfied with my past performance and will likely be very satisfied with my future performance, which I attribute to my significant investment experience as well as my participation in the CFA Program. I earned the right to use the CFA designation thirteen years ago. All CFA charter-holders must pass a series of three rigorous examinations that cover investment management and research analysis."
Two weeks later, some of Mackley's clients request that she provide supporting documentation for the research report on InnerTech, so they can familiarize themselves with how DWM analyzes investment opportunities.
Mackley asks Welch for the documents, but Welch is unable to provide copies of his supporting research since he disposed of them, according to the company's policy, one week after issuing and distributing the report.
Mackley informs Welch that obtaining the supporting documents is of the utmost importance, since one of the clients requesting the materials, Craig Adams, is about to inherit S20 million and as a result will be one of the firm's most important clients. Welch agrees to recreate the research documents in order to support the firm's relationship with Adams.
Does the arrangement between Mackley and Kern & Associates violate any CFA Institute Standards of Professional Conduct?
- Yes.
- No, because the referral agreement is fully disclosed to all clients and prospects before they employ Mackley's services.
- No, because Mackley only accepts clients with net assets above $1 million who are likely to know that the arrangement is common in the industry.
Answer(s): A
Explanation:
Mackley has appropriately disclosed the referral arrangement to clients and prospects but the nature of the arrangement itself is a violation of Standard VII(A) Conduct as Members and Candidates in the CFA Program. According to this Standard, members and candidates are prohibited from activities that compromise the integrity of CFA Institute. Mackley has misused her authority to select companies to make presentations to her local society. She only selects Kern & Associates to make presentations and excludes their competitors in order to generate referrals for her business. This reflects poorly on the local society and CFA Institute. Mackley may have also violated Standard 1(D) Misconduct by engaging in behavior that reflects poorly on her professional reputation.