Deposit rates news briefs

MFS sells 60% of company, Belgrave points out why it is different, ABN Amro cash fund passes $500 million mark.

Tuesday, 20 June 2006

The sale has been arranged with a view to grow MFS’ New Zealand arm so it becomes a significant presence in the country’s financial services sector.

The new ownership group believes impending changes to the financial services legislative landscape in New Zealand will provide an opportunity for the operation to grow rapidly in the near future.

The deal is set to be completed before the end of this month. MFS will retain a 40% stake in the business, and will continue to manage the operation.

Belgrave says why it is different
Belgrave Finance has written to its investors pointing out the differences between itself and failed finance companies Provincial Finance and National Finance 2000.

Belgrave has 27 loans over property as opposed to cars. Director Shane Buckley says these loans are "monitored personally on a weekly basis by (Belgrave) directors."

He says Belgrave has equity levels of 25% which gives it one of the highest equity ratios in the industry. He and fellow director Steve Smith have invested $5 million in the company.

Belgrave has an average loan to value ratio of just under 70%.

ABN AMRO Craigs Cash Management Trust has passed the $500 million mark, making it one of the biggest cash management funds in New Zealand.

Just over half of the funds are held in New Zealand dollars. It also includes foreign currencies including Australian dollars, British pounds, United States dollars and Euros.

"We have always seen cash as a key component of each client’s investment portfolio and have structured the ABN AMRO Craigs cash management trust to meet the changing, and increasingly global, investment markets," the company says.

Another mortgage trust arrives
Praesidium Asset Management has launched a $27 million fixed interest offering under its mortgage trust format.

The offer is of secured Notes issued by Diversified Mortgage Trust No.1 and the notes are in two classes.

The notes pay interest quarterly in arrears and are currently offered at a minimum fixed rate of 7.85% for Class A Notes and 8.65%pa for Class B Notes.

The monies raised will be invested in loans secured by mortgages, acquired from Capital+Merchant Finance.

Comment: Why the silence on Provincial?
One of the more bizarre things in the Provincial Finance collapse has been the reaction (or lack of) from the Financial Planners and Insurance Advisers Association.

The Provincial failure is a huge issue for advisers as many, collectively, had a good sum of money in Provincial. Added to that Provincial sponsored the FPIA and Society of Independent Financial Advisers.[MORE]

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name:
Your email:	Not displayed to the public
Comment:
Comments to Deposit Rates go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved.

Anti-spam verification:

Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.