News Round Up

Investment team leave property fund, The Crossings Vineyard sold, First NZ Capital dominates trades, NZX cans education plans.

Monday, January 16th 2006, 2:32AM

The Colonial First State (CFS) property securities funds, which is promoted in New Zealand by Sovereign, has had its research ratings downgraded following the defection of its investment team.

The head of property securities, Stephen Hayes, and the other members of the property securities team have moved over to fellow fund manager Perennial.

Standard & Poor's has put the fund on hold while Morningstar as given it the “avoid” tag.

Hayes has run the listed property securities portfolios since December 1999, and has more than eight years' experience working with Commonwealth Bank/Colonial First State.

“The departure of Hayes, along with other team members is considered a critical change, notwithstanding the interim management arrangements being implemented,” S&P fund analyst Peter Ward says.

Vineyard sold
The Crossings Vineyard, which St Laurence was looking at buying into, has been sold to Ager Sectus. The Crossings is a Marlborough-based wine business which was originally promoted to investors in a series of offers by Farmers Mutual Group (FMG).

During the past year the company has run into financial difficulties and was looking at various options. One was that St Laurence would underwrite a rights issue. However, the business ended up being sold to Ager Sectus.

First NZ number one
First New Zealand Capital has been the biggest player in the New Zealand share market during December.

According to NZX figures it was number one on three measures: value traded, number of trades and NZDX debt trades. While there wasn’t a huge difference in value traded between itself and second-placed ABN Amro Craigs, it dominated trades doing 8009 compared to Goldman Sachs JB Were on 5518.

Likewise it dominated debt trades with 623 against the next best Forsyth Barr on 410.

Education plans canned
The New Zealand Exchange (NZX) has ditched plans to establish an investor and broker education course.

In April 2004 NZX called for tenders from New Zealand-based educators to help it design, develop and implement an education programme aimed at both investors and brokers.

NZX originally planned to have the programme up and running by January last year. At the time NZX said the initial offerings would include a revised NZX broker education programme.

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