News round-up

Close but no Knockout; New redundancy product on the market; Ecodiesel $4.5m notes offer; Unlisted welcomes property fund; Sirius' sister wins awards

Monday, October 5th 2009, 5:08AM

Close but no Knockout
Liontamer's Knockout Series 1 fund, which invests in the DJ EURO STOXX 50 Index, is set to continue for at least another year, after winding up 6% short of its coupon trigger level.

Over the past year the index has dropped significantly as European markets suffered, although since March this year, the index has been climbing steadily along with other global markets.

But by the start of September the index still had to gain another 13% to reach its initial starting level and at the beginning of October was still 6% shy of its beginning level of 3067.35.

If the index is at or above the starting point on October 1, 2010, then the fund will wind up and investors will receive a 24% coupon.

New redundancy product on the market
DorchesterLife has released a simple, easy-to-understand redundancy insurance product to help provide a financial ‘stop-gap' for families affected by redundancy.

Stop-Gap provides a set monthly benefit, from $500 to $2,000, for up to 120 days for redundancy, and the additional benefit of a lump sum payment for death of $10,000, $30,000 or $50,000.

It also provides a lump sum payment of three times the monthly benefit in the event of bankruptcy.

Although the product is not designed to fully replace customers' incomes, one of its key advantages is that there is only a seven-day stand-down period, compared to most redundancy insurance products that have minimum stand-down periods of between 30 to 90 days.

Ecodiesel $4.5m notes offer
New Zealand biodiesel manufacturer, Ecodiesel, is issuing a $4.5 million fixed rate convertible notes offer to potential investors.

Interest will be paid at 15% per year, maturing in September 2014.

Ecodiesel produces a high-quality, sustainable biodiesel using tallow, a by-product of the meat processing industry. It is the only company in New Zealand whose biodiesel has been blended and sold at the pump to retail customers.

"Internationally, biodiesel markets have grown substantially in the past decade. Since 2001, the combined growth in the US and European Union biodiesel markets has been around 800%," says Ecodiesel chief Garry Brockett.

"The New Zealand biodiesel industry is expected to grow strongly in coming years. At present, New Zealand is one of the only OECD countries without its own active, biodiesel industry."

Unlisted welcomes property fund
The St John Balanced Property Fund has joined the Unlisted family, to provide its shareholders with a flexible and cost-effective solution to meet its secondary trading needs.

The fund owns three major commercial properties in Whangarei and Auckland, and produced a $311,234 profit before tax and asset revaluations for the year to March 31, 2009.

"We are pleased to deliver to shareholders a transparent and arms-length secondary market trading mechanism," Kevin Podmore, managing director of the fund's manager, says.

The union will give the fund's shareholders access to a visible secondary market, to provide the means of a more liquid market to develop.

Sirius' sister wins awards
Sirius Wealth Management's sister company, Commodity Strategies, has won a number of awards from Barclays Hedge.

The Commodity Strategy's Long/Short strategy, upon which the Sirius Wealth Commodity Portfolio is based, was ranked first in the ‘Diversified Traders managing more than $10m' category. Its Long Only strategy was also ranked second in the same category.

The Long/Short and Long Only funds were also ranked in the top 10 for the ‘Systematic Traders' and the ‘CTAs managing more than $10m' categories.

Barclays Hedge is a worldwide research database in the field of hedge fund and managed futures performance measurement and portfolio management.

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