Weekly briefs

• Tweet

Colonial retains bulk of investors, Managers can add value, Aussies reckon NZ OK, Calan buys another property.

Sunday, August 8th 1999, 12:00AM

by Philip Macalister

Want a great FPIA conference next year? Tell the organisers what you want by clicking here

Now Available

5 Ways to Save More Money on Your Mortgage This book is to mortgages what the Edmonds Cookbook is to cooking Click here to order your copy of this important book. Just $29.95

Colonial First State Investments is predicting that 90 per cent of its investors will keep their money in the group's new rationalised product range, and that three quarters of the people in the Prudential funds will elect to stay with CFSI.

Colonial bought Prudential last year and announced several months ago that it was to close all the Prudential unit trusts and offer investors the choice of either going into a rationalised range of CFSI funds, or to cash up. Unitholders have been given until Tuesday August 10 to decide which option they want to take.

Investors were initially slow to make their decisions, promoting CSFI to offer incentives.

As of mid last week 80 per cent of CSFI investors had made a decision and 85 per cent opted to stay with the company. The response rate from Prudential investors has been "predictably lower", but of those who have made a decision 65 per cent are staying with CFSI.

Active managers can win

All but one of the New Zealand equity managers included in the Aon Consulting wholesale survey managed to beat the NZSE 40 index in the year to June 30.

Aon says the average manager earned "a remarkable 7.7 per cent" above the index in the 12 month period.

The one which failed (a BNZ fund) did so because it was a mixture of passive and active management.

"It is apparent that active management can add value over the index over some periods," Aon says. However it also notes that managers found it difficult to beat the benchmark in 1996 and 1997.

The top three managers over the year were AMP, Spicers and Royal and SunAlliance.

Aussies reckon NZ OK
Reckon, the Australian listed company that owns the rights to Intuit's Quicken financial software Dowunder has decided to expand its operations in New Zealand.

Quicken is one of the world's most popular personal finance software packages and competes against Microsoft Money.

Kerry Wood has been appointed country manager for New Zealand and an office is being established in Auckland.

Reckon also plans to bring its discount Internet sharebroking service to New Zealand.

Calan adds property to fund
Calan Healthcare Properties Trust has recently acquired a building in Auckland which houses specialist consultancy services.

It has bought the Endoscopy Auckland building in Epsom which has a valuation of $2.58 million.

The trust is closed to new investments and is due to list on the Stock Exchange (pending unitholder approval) later this year.