Weekly briefs

Next appointment Tower V GPG, Premium warning, Houses more affordable, Sovereign delisting, National Mutual Funds Management outsources property management and Towering on.

Sunday, January 24th 1999, 12:00AM

Tower Corporation and Guinness Peat Group (GPG) will fight their next contest on the Court of Appeal on February 3. At this particular fixture GPG will be challenging the High Court's provisional approval of the Tower conversion scheme.
Tower's more than 400,000 members in New Zealand and Australia are now waiting for the insurer to issue an information memorandum setting out the pros and cons of converting to a publicly listed company and the process of doing so. However, Tower is unable to do that until the Court of Appeal has decided on the appeal lodged by GPG.

Early in December, the High Court gave provisional approval to the Tower's demutualisation scheme.
If the court rules in Tower's favour, Tower will issue the information documents to its members, who will then be called to meetings on both sides of the Tasman to vote on the demutualisation proposal.
Tower is hoping to list on the New Zealand and Australian stock exchanges by mid-year.

Premium warning
Royal & SunAlliance-owned Guardian Assurance has warned that a policy will lapse if two premiums are missed. The important point is that they do not have to be consecutive monthly premiums.
Also, it warns that under its automatic system no advice is given to either the customer or the adviser that a second premium has been missed. The only advice is the lapse notice.
Recently a policy lapsed because a premium was missed in early 1998 and December 1998. It transpired that the customer has cancer and that reinstatement of the policy was not possible.

Home affordability at record level
New Zealand home affordability is at record levels, according to the AMP Home Mortgage Affordabilty Report.
Fuelled by months of continuing drops in interest rates, the New Zealand home affordability indicator fell to its lowest level since records began in 1988.
The survey, prepared by Massey University, uses information on average weekly earnings, mortgage rates and house prices to work out whether or not houses are becoming more affordable.
Survey organiser Graham Crews of the university's finance, banking and property unit, says national home affordability has improved 37.6 per cent over the past 12 months.
All regions reflected a 12 month improvement with Southland (46.2 per cent), Otago (41.4 per cent) and Auckland (41.3 per cent) leading the way.

Towering on
Tower Financial Services Group says it increased assets under management by 15 per cent in the year ending September 30. On top of that it recorded an 11 per cent increase in premiums and subscription income.
Managing director James Boonzaier says assets under management now stand at $11.8 billion and premium and subscription income is $1.6 billion.
During the year the group reduced its expenses as a percentage of assets from 1.7 per cent to 1.6 per cent.
Solvency ratios are at 32 per cent, following a $41 million strengthening of reserves, he says.

Sovereign seeks delisting
Sovereign Ltd has formally requested delisting of its shares from the New Zealand Stock Exchange following the takeover by ASB Bank subsidiary, ASB Life.
"ASB Life Assurance Limited has now acquired 100 percent of the shares in Sovereign and formally request that Sovereign Limited cease to be listed with the New Zealand Stock Exchange," the company says in a letter to the exchange.
ASB has said that after its delisting Sovereign will remain a stand-alone company under its own management, operating from its North Shore City base and would maintain the Sovereign brand.

Colliers Jardine looks after Nat Mut
Property company Colliers Jardine will manage National Mutual Funds Management's $300 million New Zealand property portfolio bringing the amount of property it has under control to more than $1 billion.

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