News Round Up

Enter the Stock Guru sharemarket game to win cash prizes. S&P gives the Global Masters Fund the thumbs down. Investors confidence up, OCR likely to stay the same. Eleventh OM-IP fund coming. St Laurence to accept over subscriptions.

Monday, January 23rd 2006, 2:06AM

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S&P gives Global Master thumbs down
Standard & Poor's Fund Services has assigned the Global Masters Fund, managed by Growth Equities Corporation, a ‘Not Recommended’ rating.

The Growth Masters Fund is an exchange-traded fund which will have up to 80% of its money invested into the ‘A’ shares of Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway company. The remainder is in cash and bond funds in order to pay a dividend and fees.

“For the type of investor that is likely to be familiar with and want stock-specific exposure to Berkshire Hathaway, S&P cannot see the rationale for investing by way of this product. S&P considers that the ‘B’ shares are a better alternative for the retail investor to gain exposure, and these can be easily bought through local stockbrokers,” Standard & Poor’s fund analyst Simon Scott says.

He says there are issues with costs, a lack of liquidity, and the discount at which the shares may trade.

Investors confident in the face of a slowdown

Although the economy is destined for a slow-down of unknown magnitude investors are confident that they will be able to generate good investment returns. [more]

Economists expect no change in OCR this week
Economists expect recent data has been sufficiently soft to allow the Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard to leave interest rates unchanged when he reviews his official cash rate (OCR) on Thursday. [MORE].

11th OM-IP fund coming
Man Investments plans to launch Series 11 of its OM-IP 220 on February 6. This will be the 11th OM-IP 220 fund to be launched since 1997. The first 10 funds having raised more than A$1.2 billion.

Series 11 OM-IP 220 is expected to be structured as a medium to long term investment aiming to generate medium term capital growth and provide the security of a capital guarantee and a rising guarantee from National Australia Bank. The investment strategy is to harness the performance of two complementary approaches, the AHL Diversified Program and the Glenwood Portfolio.

St Laurence accepting over-subscriptions
St Laurence Property & Finance has successfully reached the offer amount of $25 million under its Series 3 Bond Offer, and has exercised its right to accept over-subscriptions up to further maximum amount of $25 million. The offer opened on December 15 and it is scheduled to close on March 31. The fixed interest rate on the Bonds is 9.25% annually with a maturity date of May 15, 2011.

“We have decided to accept over-subscriptions to satisfy market demand for the bonds,” chief executive John Mallon says.

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