Another UK investment trust lists here, RB expected to put up rates on Wednesday, Dorchester Pacific expands its broking services & more
Foreign & Colonial Eurotrust is now listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange, bringing the number of UK investment trusts listed here to 19. Trust managers aim to achieve long-term capital growth through investing in companies in Continental Europe (primarily the top 200 companies in that region).Foreign & Colonial Eurotrust is managed by Foreign & Colonial Management, one of the ten largest pension fund managers in the UK and manager of 11 investment trusts currently.
The trust's ten largest shareholdings at the end of February were mobile phone company Nokia (Finland), telco Mannesmann (Germany), Shell Transport & Trading (UK), manufacturer St Gobain (France), Roche Holdings (Switzerland), oil and gas company Elf Aquitaine (France), financial services group Bipop-Carie (Italy), French private bank Societe Generale, Rhone Poulenc (France) and Telefonica de Espana (Spain).
Watch that OCR
The Reserve Bank is generally expected to put up the Official Cash Rate at this Wednesday's review, with most pundits tipping an increase from 5.75 per cent to 6.0 per cent. That will mean - sooner or later - more rises in floating mortgage rates and in short-term interest rates generally. Before that (Monday) is the release of March quarter CPI figures: predictions here are for a 0.5 per cent to 0.8 per cent rise.
Dorchester expands services
Dorchester Pacific says it will now offer sharebroking services to the Asian community through its full subsidiary Equity Investment Advisers & Sharebrokers. Managing Director Brent King says the firm had had a long association with the Chinese and Korean communities, and it planned to offer products of particular interest to this market.
Dorchester Pacific also expects to develop more specialist services as synergies develop within the Group. The New Zealand owned and managed public company has been on the acquisition and expansion trail of late, buying discount sharebroker Direct Broking in February and Invincible at the end of last year.
Keeping your money in S.A.F.E.Money Managers has teamed up with Australasian bank Macquarie to offer an on-call account named S.A.F.E. The account's features include cheque book access, telephone withdrawals and the option of combined reporting with FiRST Masterfund monitoring reports.
Money Managers says the S.A.F.E. account offers higher returns with no transaction, exit or entry fees and has been developed as "a more sensible option" than leaving your money in the bank earning little or no interest. The account is managed by Macquarie and has been rebranded for the Money Managers' network.