News Round Up

New fund, New fund manager, New sharemarket game, OCR preview, Finance company refunds $788,000.

Tuesday, June 5th 2007, 6:46AM

Brook Asset Management has launched a global listed infrastructure fund, designed to provide investors with a low-risk tax effective dividend stream.

Brook chairman Simon Botherway says the launch of the fund coincides with the introduction of the Fair Dividend Rate tax rules which have “the effect of significantly reducing the tax burden on investors.”

Because many infrastructure assets are regulated and referenced to inflation the fund they are a natural inflation hedge, he says.

The bulk of this fund’s assets will be in Australia. “Brook considers Australia to be the most advantageous market in the world to access these investments in a tax effective manner.”

Economists predicts rates to be held

Most economists are expecting the Reserve Bank to hold interest rates steady when it releases its next monetary policy statement on Thursday but governor Alan Bollard’s comments are likely to be on the hawkish side.[MORE]

New Sharemarket game
Leading sharemarket and business news site sharechat.co.nz is running a share picking competition this month.

It’s free to enter and fun to play. To take part in Sharechat Stock Guru game and select your stocks click here.

The selection period is open for one week and within that time you are able to amend your shares at any stage.

New multi-manager firm launched
Former Milford Asset Management founder Neville Todd, has launched a new boutique funds management company, Kinloch Funds Management.

The new business will be a multi asset class manager based in Wellington.

He says the business is being launched as the savings industry moves into a phase of significant growth on the back of KiwiSaver and tax changes.

“Up until very recently we have seen a stagnation of growth in investment asset classes outside of property, but this will change as the playing field is rebalanced from a taxation perspective,“ Todd says.

Todd is the former managing director of Salomon Smith Barney in New Zealand. He is a member of the Securities Commission of New Zealand.

Finance company refunds $788,000
A finance company, Club Finance, associated with two well-known savings industry characters has reached an out-of-court settlement with the Commerce Commission.

In the settlement Club Finance has agreed to refund $788,000 to borrowers who were required to insure their car loans against the risk of redundancy, despite being unemployed at the time they took out the loans.

The company’s directors are Money Managers founder Doug Somers-Edgar, Philip Marwick, who has held senior roles at Equitable, Broadlands and Global E Bonds. The third director is Rory Hassett. Each appear to own a stake in Club Finance too.

Over 1,500 of Club Finance’s customers were unemployed when they took the loan, but were still sold insurance that ensured loan payments on their cars would be met if they were injured or made redundant.

In the settlement, Club Finance admits breaching the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act by requiring that unemployed borrowers have redundancy and injury insurance.

It has already refunded the full amount of unnecessary insurance purchased by its customers.

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