90 seconds at 9 am with BNZ

90 seconds at 9 am: Bridgecorp chairman appeals director's ban; Frozen funds petition; AON's merger bid

13th Jul 10, 8:56am by Bernard Hickey

Bernard Hickey details the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am in association with BNZ, including news that Bridgecorp Chairman Bruce Davidson is appealing a ban on him being a director for 5 years.

The Dominion Post reports Davidson's lawyers are arguing he didn't know what was happening at the company and he didn't have the accounting skills to understand if fraud was taking place.

Davidson still faces criminal and civil charges from the Securities Commission in his role in Bridgecorp, which has lost NZ$458.7 million owed to 18,000 investors, according to our Deep Freeze list.

Meanwhile, the campaign group for investors in ING's two frozen funds has called for a petition to Parliament to strip ANZ's ING of its default KiwiSaver status, BusinessDay's Marta Steeman reported.

However, Commerce Minister Simon Power has rejected the call, saying the two ING funds were separate from KiwiSaver funds.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the world's biggest insurance broker AON, has bid US$4.9 billion in cash and shares for consulting firm Hewitt Associates.

The Dow rose 0.1% and the New Zealand dollar was firm around 71 USc.

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1 Comments

by Bernard Hickey | 13th Jul 10, 10:05am 1278972336

Rusty

Thanks. Great link. Nice piece from Alistair Helm. He makes a couple of very interesting points about weak mortgage approvals being partly due to less refinancing from investors scared of banks working out their leverage has worsened and from baby boomers selling down...

"Whilst the specific details are not available it would seem to indicate that the property market is being typified by far less refinance switching between banks and potentially less trust transfers as home owners as borrowers seek to manage their current mortgage, without hunting around for refinance deals. This would be especially true as switching banks for refinance could open up issues such as debt to equity ratios when the property value may have fallen in recent years.

Another factor behind the lower mortgage approvals rate to property sales rate could well be the first sings of Baby boomers selling down properties for which a new property could be funded mortgage free."

cheers

Bernard