HARBOUR A FAILURE

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 84, 10 April 1933, Page 3

HARBOUR A FAILURE

OPUNAKE DEBENTURES. CONCESSIONS AGREED UPON. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) NEW PLYMOUTH, Sunday. An agreement which is regarded as satisfactory has been made between debenture holders and «pre S entati%es of the Opunake Harbour Board, Messrs. J. S. Hickey and W. A. Shear, who have just returned from the South. The board's loan of £55,000 is held bv 53 separate lenders from Auckland to Invercargill, and their holdmgs range from £100 to £20,500. The delegates were in touch with 43 debenture holders, representing £52,700, or nearly 96 per cent of the total. The whole of the £55,000 was due for repayment on May 1, 1933. In addition, the board was liable to pav a full year's interest, amounting to £3300, less 10 per cent, and £500 due to sinking fund, also interest at 5 per cent on six months interest overdue.

The delegates based a request for relief upon the broad grounds that the harbour had proved a complete failure, and could not be developed into a reveneue-producing port, and that the ratepayers could not be held responsible for the present hopeless position. The agreement is as follows: — (1) Debenture holders agree not to take steps to enforce their claim for arrears of interest, nor for the repayment of principal sums due to them, provided the following terms are strictly complied with: (a) That if arrears of interest due on May 1, 1933, amounting to a full year's interest, be paid on or before July 1, 1933, they agree to accept interest at the rate of 4 per cent in full settlement of their claim for interest to May 1, 1933; (b) that they agree to an extension of the maturity date of debentures held by them from May 1, 1933, to May 1, 1938; (c) that they agree to accept in full settlement of their claim for interest a rate of 4 per cent, free of any stamp dutv, on all interest accruing from May 1, 1933, to May 1, 1938, provided the interest payments are promptly made each half year. (2) The Opunake Harbour Board must undertake to pay the Public Trustee, as sinking fund commissioner of the loan, a yearly sinking fund of 1 per cent, and continue such payments during the extended term of the maturing of the loan. (3) The board must undertake to levy and collect by all legal means within its power a sufficient rate on the whole of its rateable district to provide funds to meet its full obligations under the terms previously mentioned. (4) The board must agree not to avail itself of legislation empowering it to promote a conversion scheme in respect of these loans. (5) The proceeds of the sale of any plant or materials purchased by loan moneys must be paid to the sinking fund commissioner to augment the sinking fund. (6) The board must, as its own expense, enter into any legal agreement to give full legal effect to the foregoing terms as may be subsequently found necessary, such legal instrument to be in a form to the satisfaction of the legal adviser appointed for that purpose by the debenture holders.