Weekly briefs

Property floats oversubscribed, NZRPT further writes down assets, Waltus proud of purchase, KIPT consolidates.

Monday, June 8th 1998, 12:00AM

Property floats oversubscribed
New Zealand Guardian Trust's three listed property funds have closed 25 per cent over subscribed.
The company was looking to raise $40 million for its Property Leaders New Zealand, Property Leaders Australia and Property Leaders Australia and New Zealand funds, yet received subscriptions of almost $50 million.
Chief operating officer Michael Good says all subscriptions will be accepted.
He expects the three index funds will continue to grow in the same way as the listed equity fund TeNZ has done.
The trusts are due to list on the Stock Exchange on June 10.

NZRPT writes down values further
New Zealand Rural Property Trust reported a bottom-line loss of $1.35 million for the six months to December 31.
The trust produced a pre-tax operating surplus of $824,722 for the period, however wrote down the value of its properties a further $1.83 million.
Chief executive officer Tim Ryan says the manager is conscious of the lack of distributions over the past 18 months, but considers it is acting in the best interests of unitholders.
"Distributions will be considered again, once the current year end results are known."
He says the trust's balance sheet remains strong with no term debt, and no asset sales have been made since the suspension on redemption of units was lifted in November.

KIPT consolidates
Kiwi Income Property Trust is been consolidating its position as "the leading balanced property fund manager in New Zealand" by selling some of its non-core assets, chairman Robert Narev says.
The trust increased its net operating profit 31 per cent to $27.5 million for the year ending March 31, and paid a total, partly imputed dividend of 9.56 cents per unit during the year.
Narev says some of the trust's earlier investments have become inappropriate and no longer offer the same value as opportunities KIPT is now able to consider. Consequently these assets have been sold.
"This consolidation of value has been a feature of the year to march and it was also pleasing to achieve a surplus over book value on the realisation of non-strategic assets."

Waltus proud of purchase
Waltus director Shayne Hodge believes competitive jealously is fuelling criticism of the price the property syndicator paid for the KPMG building in Auckland.
Waltus paid $50 million for the Auckland CBD building and some commentators reckon that was $10 million too much.
Hodge says three other parties were keen on the building, two at the Waltus price and one at $750,000 more.
He says institutions are peeved that Waltus acquired a prime property "which they believed was rightfully theirs."
Hodge is proud that Waltus secured the building ahead of the institutions.

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