Knives out for NZRPT manager

Trouble is again brewing amongst unitholders in the New Zealand Rural Property Trust with a number of key advisory groups calling for the manager to be sacked.

Thursday, April 8th 1999, 12:00AM

Trouble is again brewing amongst unitholders in the New Zealand Rural Property Trust with a number of key advisory groups calling for the manager to be sacked.
An earlier attempt, orchestrated by a group of unitholders many of whom leased trust farms, failed to remove the manager.
However, two key advisory groups, Money Managers and Equity Research, are now prepared to back plans to sack the manager.
"We would like to see someone else managing the trust," Equity Research managing director Phil Briggs says.

He says the manager has been doing nothing to help unitholders redeem their units and it has been too concerned about losing its management contract which is based on asset size.
"If we don't make some waves we're are going to drown peacefully. Losing money and drowning peacefully isn't my game," he says.
Likewise Money Managers' managing director Doug Somers-Edgar agrees the manager needs to be replaced.
Advisers also appear to be lukewarm to the manager's proposal to close the trust for five years, implement a capital repayment and restructure the management fee structure.
Somers-Edgar says the manager won't be successful in closing the trust, while Briggs says even if they are successful the manager still needs to be replaced.
The trust announced its restructuring plans in November and said it would hold a special meeting in February or March. That meeting has still not been held.
NZRPT chief executive Tim Ryan has not responded to calls from Good Returns.
Meanwhile, Tainui Group Holdings has, through its investment company MDC Investment Holdings Ltd, bought 3 million units in the trust at $1.03 each.
The offer was made to all unitholders on a first come first served basis on March 16, and has now closed. Currently units are trading on the secondary market for about 80 cents, while the net asset backing of units, as at December 31, is $1.21.
MDC chief executive Waari Ward-Holmes says in a letter to NZRPT that it is intent on taking a "strategic long-term holding in the trust".
The offer was made to the 866 unitholders who currently had redemption requests for nearly 13 million units (representing nearly a quarter of the units on issue) with the manager.

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