News Round Up

Sentinel doubles loan book, Update on PFS offer, Top 1o themes, Shareholders warned.

Monday, January 29th 2007, 7:21AM

The home equity release market continues to grow with Sentinel reporting that its loan book has doubled in size in the past year.

Its loan book has gone from from $89 million (at the end of 2005) to $176 million 12 months later. This represented a growth of 94% of numbers of loans – from 1801 to 3493.

“Our research shows seniors are borrowing against their major asset responsibly and conservatively. For instance the average lump sum initial drawn down typically represents around 13% of the value of the property, leaving plenty of value in their homes now and for the future," Sentinel managing director Richard Coon says.

The average initial loan drawn down has dropped slightly from $41,001 to $39,708. “This is because in response to our customers, we dropped the minimum loan size from $20,000 to $10,000 and introduced an Express Top Up facility allowing people to release money as and when they need it, rather than all up front,” Coon says.

CBS directors say won't sell into Propertyfinance stand
Canterbury Building Society directors do not plan to sell into a $6.5 million on-market stand for 19.9% of its shares by Propertyfinance Group, and said talk of a merger was premature. [MORE].

Key macro themes for 2007
Key Macro Themes for 2007 The National Bank outlines its thoughts on the top 10 macro themes for the year. [Read full article here]

AMP warns shareholders
AMP has urged its New Zealand retail shareholders not to accept unsolicited offers to buy their shares at prices significantly below their current market value.

Some AMP shareholders have recently received such offers through letters from a group called Colonial Capital Corporation Ltd (CCC). CCC is a company associated with David Tweed. Tweed has become well known in Australia for contacting shareholders of companies, particularly those with a large base of retail shareholders, with offers to buy shares at prices well below market value.

CCC is currently offering some shareholders $6 per share, which is significantly lower than AMP’s closing share price of NZ$11.70 on 24 January 2007.

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