News Round Up

Morningstar fund manager of the year award nominees, Expect interest rate rise this week, Superstore bid fails, St Laurence to make rights offer, Albany Property joins Unlisted.

Monday, March 5th 2007, 5:23AM

Morningstar will be announcing its fund manager of the year awards on Tuesday. AMP, ING and Tower are battling it out for the overall award this year.

ING has five nominations in the six sector categories. Tower has three sector nominations.

ASB Group Investments has two nominations, while a raft of other managers all have one sector nomination each. These include AMP, Asteron, AXA, Fund Managers Auckland, Fund Managers Canterbury, Sovereign, Fisher Funds and Guardian Trust.

Expect interest rate rise this week

The still-buoyant housing market has most economists expecting Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard will raise interest rates Thursday and they don’t think recent turmoil in international equity and currency markets will make any difference.[MORE].

St Laurence to make rights offer
St Laurence Property & Finance intends undertaking a pro-rata renounceable rights issue to raise up to $22.7 million.

“SLPF is undertaking the rights issue to allow it to pursue selected property investment and development opportunities, and to retire debt,” executive chairman Kevin Podmore says.

It is proposed that holders of SLPF existing property notes will be entitled to subscribe on a one for five basis.

Podmore says that the sole shareholder, St Laurence Limited, is fully committed to the success of SLPF and has agreed to take up its entitlement of 5.6 million notes for $5.88 million and to fully underwrite the balance of the offer. The new notes will be issued at $1.05 each and will have a fixed coupon of 9.0%.

Albany joins Unlisted
Albany City Property Investments is to be its first company to quote debt securities on Unlisted exchange.

It is the first of what is expected to be a busy year for Unlisted, according to manager Bruce Cossill. “We are currently in discussions with several other potential issuers who are considering their trading arrangements and I am optimistic we will see the Unlisted board grow strongly in the next few months.”

Albany bondholders will "now be able to experience the benefits of a transparent trading environment with improved liquidity and price discovery.”

Superstore takeover fails
St Laurence Property & Finance's takeover bid for Superstores has failed to go unconditional and has now lapsed.

SLPF executive chairman Kevin Podmore said it was disappointing that the takeover offer did not become unconditional, however it did get close.

“Given the 46% response we received, and the level of demand we’ve seen from investors seeking to cash up their parcels in Superstore at a favourable price, St Laurence Property & Finance is now considering its future options.”

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