The IFA conference, which was scheduled to take place in Nelson in July, has been moved to Auckland and will now run in May, directly after the two-day PortfolioConstruction Forum Symposium.

Heathcote Investment Partners director Clayton Copplestone, who offered to fit the Perfecting Investment Portfolios event in with the IFA conference, said the change of time and place suggested the IFA had got “one or both” of those things wrong.

“To have an event like that in a regional area puts additional pressure on delegates in the first place.  I don’t think any of the professional bodies have the luxury of picking a regional venue for a national conference,” he said.

IFA president Nigel Tate said the institute began investigating the switch in August last year when preparations for the original event in Nelson were in their infancy.

He said the PortfolioConstruction Forum was at a higher level than what was available in New Zealand and working with it “killed two birds with one stone” by uncluttering the conference schedule.

“We looked at the diary of conferences and they were chocking up; we had the PortfolioConstruction Forum, Perfecting Investment Portfolios, the IFA, the PAA… all those organisations running conferences is just going to clog up too much and we’re all going to suffer.”

A source who has presented at IFA events said the IFA risked diluting its brand by running the conference in collaboration with another provider.

“There’s a chance people will go to the PortfolioConstruction Forum event and then leave after that.”

But Tate said the situation was no different to last year’s conference when the IFA collaborated with the NZX.

“There will be people who go to the Portfolio Construction Symposium who are not members of the institute.  This will be a great opportunity to see whether we can get some of these investment specialists and see if they can pick up practice management and other things as well.”

The Professional Advisers Association (PAA) is also holding its annual conference in Auckland. OnePath is holding its adviser conference in Martinborough.