News Round Up

Sentinel gets $20 mill, Looking for a good investment conference, Intl shares added to local mandate, AXA's replacement found,

Monday, March 20th 2006, 1:52AM

Home equity release firm Sentinel has raised $20million from Australian private equity firm Quadrant Private Equity to help fund international expansion plans.

“We have ambitious expansion plans which envisage two or three new country launches each year,” group managing director Richard Coon says. “These will normally be done in conjunction with local distribution partners.”

This new equity almost doubles the group’s capital to $44million. Sentinel says it has 94% of the domestic market.

Looking for a good investment conference?

Then consider this. Fund Distributors is holding its inaugural conference in Auckland in May. The one-day conference is designed to provide high level investment thinking and will be moderated by Craig Stobo. Speakers include Jonathan Pain (JP Consulting), Jarod Dawson (PM Capital), Paul Silk (Global Medley Advisors), Paul Dyer (NZ Super Fund), Scott Campbell (MitonOptimal), Jean-Christophe Iseux (Special Adviser to People’s Republic of China).

International shares added to mandate
Australian fund manager Perpetual has decided to broaden its investment guidelines for many of its Australian share funds to allow them to opportunistically invest in offshore-listed stocks.

It says it will do this when it believes the investments represent superior value or greater performance potential than Australian-listed companies.

The change has been made as the Australian sharemarket has changed considerably over the past 20 years and many Australian companies are now expanding offshore.

“The trend towards Australian companies investing offshore means that investors have needed to analyse these companies relative to their global competitors as well as their Australian industry peers to assess their value and future prospects."

"Our sole objective of broadening the investment universe is to increase our chances of delivering higher returns for investors while keeping the risk profile of our Australian share funds in line with the benchmark and their long-term objectives."

AXA's replacement found
The New Zealand Refining Company has moved into the NZX 50 filling a vacancy left by the removal of AXA Asia Pacific Holdings from the NZX.

NZ Refining will be added also to the NZX 50 Portfolio Index and NZX MidCap Index.

Another company will be added when Rank Group completes its takeover of Carter Holt Harvey.

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