Weekly briefs

Tower enhances its cash fund, Waltus goes for shares and gets the rights to an old GEM, Property trusts do better, Insurance bid rumoured and more.

Sunday, February 7th 1999, 12:00AM

Tower Managed Funds (TMF) is offering foreign currency accounts with its FirstRate cash management trust.
It is now offering customers US and Australian dollar accounts, plus a Sterling account, each with three different interest rate tiers.
The fund is being offered to a number of brokers as a CMT facility and Merrill Lynch (whose private client business is headed up by former Tower Trust Services managing director Peter Fredricson) is using the FirstRate cash fund for its clients.
Unitholders can use telephone banking facilities to transfer money directly from their bank account to FirstRate.
Also, TMF has arranged a cheque facility exclusively (at this stage) for Merrill Lynch customers who use FirstRate.

Waltus goes for shares...
Lower Hutt based property syndicator Waltus Investments Ltd is planning to use a share float to raise funds for its latest CBD building purchase.
The company aims to raise up to $6.8 million through the float for the Royal & SunAlliance building in Wellington which it has bought for $12.5 million.
The building on The Terrace has been used as Royal's head office since being built in 1988. Waltus has a nine-year lease back agreement on the building with Royal.
Waltus director Shayne Hodge says that at the current rental, investors will receive a nine percent per annum quarterly interest payment.

...and gets the rights to an old GEM
Waltus has secured the rights to promote the Australian Unity Property Securities Fund in New Zealand.
The fund, formerly the GEM Properties Securities Fund, is managed by a subsidiary of Australian Unity and has more than 10,000 investors (1,000 of those are New Zealanders) and has assets of $170 million.
Australian Unity group managing director Mark Sibree says the company assumed responsibility for the fund last year.
"By establishing a presence in New Zealand we are flagging our intention to build considerably on that base (of 1,000 NZ investors).
"We are entering the market more directly to give New Zealand investors an opportunity to invest in a diversified portfolio of leading property trusts owning major commercial, industrial and retail properties in Australia and the United States," he says.

Property trusts do better
The National Property Trust, which is intending to merge with the Newmarket Property Trust, has reported a higher surplus and distribution to unitholders.
The trust's after-tax surplus for the six months to November 30, at $1.47 million was $210,000 more than in the corresponding period last year.
Meanwhile, the AMP Office Trust announced, last week a net surplus of $18.92 million for the six months to December 31, and an unimputed dividend of 4.87 cents per share.

Insurance bid rumoured
French insurance group, and major National Mutual shareholder AXA is reported to be on the verge of making a bid for British insurer Guardian Royal Exchange (GRE). The bid is thought to be £3.5 billion (NZ$12 billion).
GRE has for some time now been considered ripe for acquisition as it was the only mid-sized listed insurance business listed in the United Kingdom.
GRE recently sold its New Zealand operations Guardian Assurance to Royal & SunAlliance.

Colonial's in Fiji...
Colonial Limited has reached an agreement with the Government of the Fiji Islands to acquire 51 per cent of the National Bank of Fiji, with a pre-option to acquire 75 per cent.
Colonial was the successful bidder in a competitive tender process conducted for the government by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The acquisition is subject to approval from the Reserve Bank of Fiji and ratification by the Fijian Parliament.
Colonial’s managing director international financial services Rob Garnsworthy, says the company had agreed to pay F$9.5 million for 51 per cent of the Corporatised National Bank.

...and Asia
Colonial has shown its desire to expand its embryonic funds management business in Asia through the purchase of the Asian and United Kingdom funds management businesses of US-based fund manager Nicholas-Applegate for $US15.8 million.
Nicholas-Applegate’s regional investment management group , which has operations in Singapore, Hong Kong and London, has more than US$400 million funds under management.
The acquisition is subject to regulatory approval.