The book says , that there must be Fair Deal with every client but there can be difference in the level of services and you can treat them differently.
Take an example , The investment manger has dislosed terms while on-boarding the client regarding the HOT IPOs allocations, he mentioned:-
There are three level of service
Platinum- These peolple will be allocated with the biggest share in the IPOs - around 60% of the total shares that Manger has received
Gold - These peolple will get the second biggest allocation- around-25% of the total shares that Manger has received
Silver- These peolple will get 15 % of the total shares that Manger has received
They have also mentioned :-
Please note : the allocation between the investors of the same level will be on pro-rata.
Does Investment manger has violated the standard or he can use these terms.
I see the clients are classified by the fees they pay to the manager. I suppose platinum clients pay more fees than gold or silver, so platinum clients get the most profitable shares and a higher participation in good deals. This is bad… this is not fair dealing. IPOs are risky, they can be great profit but also high loses in a single day, so they are not meant for every investor. The only way you can discriminate the % of shares the manager receives from the IPO is by the risk aversion of each type of client. For example, aggresive investors will want to get the most shares of the IPO and very passive investors may even want zero of those shares.
This manager is not complying with the CFA code of standards.
I guess the only way you can differentiate between clients while allocating hot IPO shares is based on the size of their portfolio, i.e. you cannot give 100 shares to a client who has $1M portfolio and 50 to the one having $10000 portfolio. In this case the allocation should be done based on the size of their portfolio i.e. bigger the portfolio shall get proportionately more share.