News Round Up

Good month for funds, Tax change could snare homes in family trusts, Urbus sells and confirms dividends, share investors can now buy protection, top risk brokers named.

Sunday, September 21st 2003, 10:46PM

Managed funds returns have continued to improve in the past quarter according to research house FundSource.

"It has been a very positive period for managed fund investors in recent times, with equity investments in particular recording very strong returns", FundSource's Tim Anderson says.

August had been the fifth month in a row managed funds had yielded positive returns. [MORE]

Tax change could snare homes in family trusts
Inland Revenue is considering a change that could find people with their homes in family trusts hit by tax rates of 45% for the benefit they receive, tax experts warned yesterday.

The IRD has put forward a proposal, ED47, that would see qualifying or "good" trusts reclassified as non-qualifying or "bad" trusts if they are found to have any outstanding tax to be paid, even inadvertently. [MORE]

Urbus sells properties
Urbus Properties has sold three of its Wellington office blocks for $23.4 million.

The company sold the buildings to two separate investors; one a family trust and another a developer, at $750,000 above their book values.

Urbus says the buoyant property market helped it realise good prices for its Wellington properties though the Wellington office market was perceived by Urbus as facing a significant number of challenges, including increasing insurance premiums, "over renting", building operating expenses and loss of major tenants.

Urbus says its present forecast dividend of not less than nine cents a share remained "sustainable into the foreseable future".

New futures for NZX
New Zealand Exchange Limited (NZX) has today signed a deal with the SFE Corporation (SFE) for the listing and trading of New Zealand equity derivative products.

The deal enables NZX to provide a range of futures and options contracts to New Zealand investors through the listing of these equity products on the Sydney Futures Exchange.

NZX chief executive Mark Weldon says New Zealand investors have been disadvantaged by not having access to locally-based futures and options.

The Securities Commission has welcomed the move. [MORE]

Top insurance brokers
The winner of the this year's IIBA Insurance Broker of the Year award is Guy Harvie of Guy Harvie Insurance Group Limited in Tauranga. Graeme Robertson of Robertson Insurance Group in Wellington was voted the Vero CIBNZ Broker of the Year.

The results were announced at the annual insurance industry conference in Fiji.

This is the first year the awards have been presented by the Insurance Brokers Association of New Zealand (IBANZ), a combination of the Independent Insurance Brokers Association (IIBA) and the Corporation of Insurance Brokers of New Zealand (CIBNZ), although each industry body selected its own winner.

Both winners will travel to London to undertake research into the insurance topic of their choice. They will meet with a number of international insurance experts, visit Lloyd’s of London and the British Insurance Brokers Association.

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