AIM Trimark Investments today announced the creation of an Independent Review Committee (IRC) to oversee AIM Trimark’s mutual funds’ holdings of certain financial issuers.

The IRC will review holdings and trades by the funds in these financial issuers and ensure they have been made in the best interests of investors, free from any improper influence such as considerations external to the investment merits.

For years, Canadian mutual funds were prohibited from making or holding investments in issuers where the issuer had a significant interest in the mutual fund or where a large investor in the mutual fund was related to the issuer.

Canadian securities regulators have allowed these restrictions to be lifted for AIM Trimark. The company says lifting the restrictions should benefit investors because the portfolio management teams of AIM Trimark’s funds now have more flexibility regarding the investments they can make

In lieu of the restrictions that had been in place, the regulators asked AIM Trimark to create an IRC to review holdings and trades in these financial issuers.

The IRC committee is comprised of Kathy Chant, Ronald Gage, Marilyn Field-Marsham and Robert Luba. None are current or former employees, directors, officers or associates of: AIM Trimark Investments, a portfolio manager of the funds, a financial issuer, or one of their associates or affiliates.

All four committee members are already members of the longstanding Independent Fund Advisory Board which provides broad, independent oversight to safeguard the interests of investors in AIM Trimark’s funds.

The 10-member Fund Advisory Board was voluntarily established by AIM Trimark in 1999 to protect investor interests in the management of AIM Trimark’s funds. The board, of which the majority of the members are independent of AIM Trimark, is one of the few of its type in the Canadian investment management industry.