News Round Up

Morningstar launches indices, EQC opts for State Street, Have you been ripped off by offshore brokers?

Thursday, December 27th 2001, 5:56AM

Morningstar Inc says it will launch 16 stock market indices in the US in the first quarter of next year.

They will include a broad market index and indices that split the market according to capitalisation and investment style.

The indices will be licensed to institutions for the creation of investment vehicles including managed funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and derivative securities.

They will also be used as part of Morningstar's tool for evaluating mutual funds

Morningstar will be competing against the likes of Standard & Poor's, Wilshire Associates and Morgan Stanley with its indices.

The indices include seven aggregate ones, one broad market index, three capitalisation indices - large, mid and small, and three style indices - value, neutral and growth.

The remaining nine indices will be style box component indices: large capitalisation -value, neutral and growth; mid capitalisation - value, neutral and growth; and small capitalisation - value, neutral and growth.

EQC gives money to State Street

State Street Global Advisors has won a mandate to manage the passive international equity exposure of the Earthquake Commission's $4 billion Natural Disaster Fund.

The Government last month give EQC the ability to diversify its fund, as it did earlier the year with the Government Superannuation Fund.

The GSF decided to use AMP's WiNZ fund for its passive international share exposure, while EQC has gone for State Street,

EQC is aiming to put up to 35%of its funds into international shares and the balance will stay in Government bonds. State Street's mandate of $405 million, represents about 40% of EQC's offshore share exposure.

State Street will passively manage the money against the MSCI World Index. The remainder of the international portfolio will be active, with mandates awarded in early 2002.

Have you been ripped off?
New Zealanders who think they have been duped by brokers based in Manila and Bangkok are being asked to contact authorities in Hong Kong.

The authorities want information to help them with their investigations.

The names of the brokers and the companies that they are associated with, as identified by the Hong Kong authorities, are available on the New Zealand Securities Commission website www.sec-com.govt.nz.

Property surfacing
Colonial First State Property Fund manager Lloyd Cundy says the New Zealand property market is in general buoyant and there is strong demand for office assets in the $1m to $20m range.

He says low interest rates are making investors look more favourably on property, as well as the drift towards defensive assets with good yields.

The Colonial First State Property Fund has just reported a tax-paid profit of $7.08 million for the six months to September 30 and it wil be paying an interim gross dividend of 2.64 cents per unit.

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