DEBT CONVERSION

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 70, 24 March 1933, Page 7

DEBT CONVERSION

OVER 90 PER CENT. APPLICATIONS CLOSE TO-NIGHT. i DISSENTS TOTAL £472,000. (By Telegraph.—Special to " Star.") WELLINGTON 1 ", this day. ' Ninety per cent of the internal -debt has been offered to the Government for conversion, and holders of the- remaining 10 per cent have only a few more hours in which to make their applications. Returns requisitioned late last niglifc from banks, poet offices and district Treasury offices in all parts of NewZealand brought the total offer up to £104,0)0,337, which represents slightlyover 90 per cent of the whole debt of £115,000,000. Similar returns will lie called for to-night, so that, although the final result of the conversion will not be* known until next week, it will be possible by to-morrow to give a very fair approximation. Stock in respect of which dissents have been lodged is now £472,000, or considerably less than one-half of one per cent of the.total conversions. Since the last few days have shown no marked, increase in notices of dissent, the Government believes it safe to predict that conversions, assented and "silent," will represent as much as 98 or 99 per cent of the total debt. The conversion of the British, war loan last year, under different conditions, was 92 per cent successful. In the. Australian debt conversion of 1931, out of £550,000,000, assented stock was £457,000,000 (88 per cent), dissented stocky £15,000,000 (3 per cent), and "silent" conversions £50,000,000 (9 per cent). It is already clear that both the percentage of conversions actually assented and the total percentage of conversions will be greater in New Zealand than they were in the Commonwealth.