Top trust under wind-up threat

A group of unitholders is attempting to wind-up the New Zealand Rural Property Trust.

Tuesday, January 13th 1998, 12:00AM

The New Zealand Rural Property Trust, once billed as the country's top performing trust, is under threat of being wound-up.
A group of 64 unitholders have petitioned the manager seeking that the $72 million trust be put into a state of "controlled liquidation".
"The sooner this thing is wound-up the better," one substantial unitholder told Good Returns.
The irate group of unitholders is being headed by accountant Alex Paterson who is a director with a number of companies including Steel and Tube, New Zealand Petroleum and Tru-Test Corporation.

He says unitholders have a number of concerns about the performance of the trust and its manager.
Paterson says the manager is "creaming all the rents off in fees."
His analysis of the trust's accounts shows that income has declined from $3.51 million in 1994 to $2.27 million three years later, yet expenses have fallen by $257,000 and management and trustee fees have stayed static around the $2 million mark.
"In 1997 (management and trustee fees) actually exceeded the trust's income from rentals and lease premia," he says.
This group of unit holders is also dissatisfied with the way the trust's distributions have all but dried up.
In its early (calendar) years the trust made distributions which peaked at 22.4 cents per unit. The last distribution the fund made was in June 1996 and that was at the rate of 1 cent per unit.
The petitioning unitholders would like to sack the manager, however it says only the trustee, New Zealand Guardian Trust, has the power to do that, and it has indicated it would not pursue such an action.
Paterson says they have looked at other options to solving their problems.
"Unfortunately there aren't any. It's time to stop the clock, wind the thing up and give investors their money back," he says.
The trust's manager does not support the resolution to wind-up the fund.
It says just 65 of the fund's 5256 unitholders had signed the request for a special general meeting.
The meeting is scheduled to be held in Wellington on February 11.
NZRPT reports loss

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