Weekly briefs

Wealthy and Wise for sale, Public Trust Office decision reserved, Opio rights issue and Sovereign's second securitisation.

Monday, August 17th 1998, 12:00AM

A sale of the Wealthy and Wise business to a funds management firm is imminent, industry sources reckon.
Armstrong Jones and Colonial have been tipped as the two most likely firms to buy the business, however Good Returns understands AJ is the one which will do the deal.
AJ managing director Paul Fyfe said early last week that the company hadn't bought Wealthy and Wise. However, he has previously not ruled out the possibility of AJ buying a financial planning firm.
Wealthy and Wise is an Auckland based firm headed up by David Greenslade, and it is a member of the AdvisorGroup which uses the AJ Private Portfolio Service.

Should Greenslade sell the business it is likely he will spend more time on the seminar circuit.

Public Trust decision reserved
The High Court at Wellington has reserved its decision about who owns the Public Trust Office's $84 million in accumulated profits.
The Crown has asked the court to determine ownership of this money as a preparatory step to selling the asset.
The Solicitor General, John McGrath, QC, told the court the accumulated profits belong to the Crown.
On the other side the George Barton, QC, argued that the Public Trustee had an obligation to return all the profits from investing money in his care to the owners of the original funds.
Barton told the court the principles of trusteeship remained unchanged by the law and the Public Trustee's basic job has always been to administer estates in the interests of beneficiaries.
It was still their money the Public Trustee was investing whether he did so on an individual estate basis or through a pool known as the "common fund".
The Public Trust has not taken sides in the case, and none of the $4.3 billion it currently manages is at stake.

Sovereign's second securitisation
Sovereign has launched a second $150 million mortgage backed bond issue to fund its growing home mortgage business.
"We believe this second bond issue represents a further significant step in the development of the New Zealand market," Sovereign Financial Services managing director Paul Bravo says.
He says securitising mortgages enables the company to offer low interest rates to homeowners and it also provides investors with highly rated bond investments.
"Since the first issue (in November) the pool of investors seeking bonds has widened, and that increased demand has meant that the cost of borrowing has fallen."

Opio rights issue
The Opio Forestry Fund hopes to raise $2.9 million from investors to plant more trees and manage its forests.
The fund's 1900 unitholders will be offered the chance to buy one new unit for every one they own at a price of 40 cents each.
Fund trustee Perpetual Trust says the rights issue was the only option to provide working capital for the fund given the long-term nature of the fund and the fact that significant cash flow was 14 years away.

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