News Round Up

AGRI Fund fails to reach minimums, FDL moves to Queenstown, Fairfax buys bucketshop. COMMENT:

Monday, September 17th 2007, 5:03AM

Plenty of talk about the start of a spring campaign for home loan business. Kiwibank is getting all the attention at the moment. However its only two decreases were a 40 point cut to three-year rates and a five point cut to five year rates. Other rates, such as six months and five years have gone up. Wizard, Westpac and SBS has also made small cuts to two year rates. All the details are in our comprehensive rates table.

On the news front Challenger has bought aggregator Plan. Read all about the deal here.

Low strike rate for AGRI Fund

The AGRI Private Capital Fund has failed to reach its minimum subscription target and will no longer go ahead.

The fund, which was to be managed by BT Funds, was seeking a minimum of $16 million. Securities legislation requires that offers have to meet their minimum subscription level within four months of the offer opening date. Since the AGRI Fund failed to do this the prospectus is being withdrawn and applicants' money returned, with interest.

AGRI Fund chairman, Peter Jackson, says it is disappointing to close the offer having fallen just short of the minimum level. "We were pleased with the institutional support we were able to further gain in the past month, and believe we could have secured that interest if we were able to extend the offer."

He cited recent changes in the economic and financial environment and the failure of several finance companies as factors which worked against the offer.

FDL relocates to Queenstown
Fund Distributors Limited (FDL) directors Michael Lodge and Michael Skeggs have relocated the business from Auckland's CBD to Queenstown.

The company, established in 2001, specialises in seeking out strong financial investment funds primarily from New Zealand and Australia, and bringing them to market. It looks for the funds and fund managers that offer well-managed investment products with proven track-records, and distributes those products through financial advisers.

The focus of FDL is to help financial advisers build portfolios that provide consistent returns throughout all market conditions.

Fairfax buys bucketshop
Fairfax Media has paid A$12 million for website which sells managed funds directly to the public.

The site, InvestSMART, operates mainly in Australia, but does have a small operation in New Zealand.

It will be merged with Fairfax's Direct Access which distributes personal investment products.

The merged business will have more than A$1 billion in funds under management.

InvestSMART enables Australians to research and purchase from a selection of over 4,000 managed funds offered by Australian fund managers. Instead of purchasing managed funds from financial planners, InvestSMART allows customers to purchase funds with zero entry fees.

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