News Round Up

Tuesday, October 28th 2003, 6:43AM

Non-conforming lender Liberty Financial has launched a $110 million mortgage backed securitisation issue in New Zealand.

Standard & Poor’s has assigned its AAA preliminary rating to the Liberty NZ Series 2003-1 Trust.

It is the first securitisation of New Zealand subprime and nonconforming residential mortgages to be rated by Standard & Poor’s.

Liberty was the first, and remains the highest, issuer of subprime and nonconforming RMBS in the Australian market.

"This issue will provide further diversity to the New Zealand capital markets, Liberty managing director Sherman Ma says.

Number One changes
St Laurence Group have made some enhancements to its Number One Portfolio Trust, including a reduction in the minimum investment and redemption amounts from $5,000 per investor and $1,000 per fund to $1,000 per investor and $100 per fund; the introduction of an easier redemption process; and it has reduced the initial investment periods for three of the five funds.

St Laurence says the shortening of the initial investment periods not only improves liquidity but helps mitigate the risk to investors of any likely changes to the AUT tax structure used by Number One.

All five of the Number One funds achieved their base returns in the September quarter.

New OM-IP series
The latest series of funds from OM Strategic aims to provide investors with returns of 12% annually, as opposed to the 20% earlier funds were geared towards.

OM-IP MultiStrategy though continues to offer a capital guarantee and rising guarantee - this time from National Australia Bank, not Westpac.

The new also differs from the OM-IP 220 Series in utilising three (rather than two) complementary international investment programmes. They are: The AHL Diversified Programme, The Glenwood Multi-Strategy Programme and The Man & RMF Portfolio.

Our own hedge fund
Locally-owned merchant bank Bancorp says it plans to establish a New Zealand hedge fund targeting the opportunities created by takeover bids.

The $30 million fund will be for retail investors in New Zealand and Australia and it will be looking for arbitrage opportunities.

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