News Round Up

Waltus postpones meeting, Rivals eye Waltus' management contracts, Trust renamed. Special Offer to advisers.

Sunday, August 20th 2000, 12:00AM

Waltus has decided to postpone, for a fortnight, the meetings needed to merge 29 of its syndicates into one.

The company has written to investors and said it has called for the postponement due to insufficient information in the investment statement about the likely prospects of the syndicates over the next 19 months if the merger didn't go ahead.

Waltus says the information in the investment statement is correct. However it needed to provide further information about how the numbers were calculated.

Meanwhile, two of Waltus's rivals, Strategic Investment Group and St Laurence, have teamed up and offered to take over the management contracts for Waltus syndicates.

In a letter to advisers the companies say they are prepared to "(jointly) offer their services to manage the proposal in its present form or any of the syndicates that vote against amalgamation."

Good Returns will provide more details on the latest developments on Monday.

Trust renamed

Calan has changed the name of its global healthcare unit trust to Affinity Healthcare Worldwide Growth Trust.

The name was changed to differentiate this growth-orientated equity fund from the income orientated Calan Healthcare Properties Trust.

Also the name of the management company has been changed to Affinity Funds Management, which remains part of the Calan Group.

Affinity is making initial investments in the UK based Framlington Health Fund, which was launched in 1989.

New looks, new features
Good Returns is planning to unveil its revamped website to readers on September 1.The new look site will be more than just a comprehensive, up-to-date news service. We will be rolling out new features over the next month or so which will make the site an essential business tool for advisers and investors.

One of the first new services will be a Find-A-Planner service. This service is designed help investors find a suitable adviser in their area.

The service is more than just a "yellow pages listing", as advisers are able to provide a 200 word description of their business, as well as all their contact details, including hyperlinks to their email and website (if they have one). To find out more information about this service and our SPECIAL OFFER click here or call (07) 3456869..

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