Govt, first mortage inadequate—Odlins

Press, 16 September 1976, Page 22

Govt, first mortage inadequate—Odlins

t PA Wellington - 5 No adjustment in the limit .of first mortgate from the . Housing Corporation has! been made since 1974, and the maximum amount now available is completely inadequate in view of the high rate of inflation. Therefore, the future for housing developers is not at all bright, the chairman of Odlins, Ltd (Mr H. Hill), told the annual meeting. .> The company was disappointed that the Budget. did not make provision for an increase this year. Unless there is early improvement in the availability of adequate first mortgage ' money at reasonable rates of i interest, it is difficult to see how the Government’s stated target of 28,000 house completions can be achieved. The comments were made by Mr Hill in his review of one of Odlin Group’s subsidiaries, Prestige Homes Corporation.

The group’s land development and housing activities are carried out by Prestige Homes Corporation, Ltd, Prestige Homes (Auckland)/ Ltd, and Prestige Investments, Ltd.

Although these companies showed a downturn in profit compared with the previous year's operations, they still produced a “satisfactory” result. for the year under review.

Group sales for the first quarter of the year (not including Zip Holdings) show an increase of 18.57 per cent. Odlins anticipated many advantages from the Zip merger, and the turnover of Zip was also maintaining its favourable improvement over previous years, he said.

The company earned a profit of S3.OM for the year to March 31. compared with the figure of $2.2M in the nine-month period of 1975. Shareholders funds increased by just over S2M to I 522.5 M, representing the! excess value of total group assets of $43.2M over total liabilities of $20.7M. The ratio of current assets to current liabilities is three to one.

Current assets increased

|$4.O5M due mainly to increases in stocks and debtors.

! Group turnover of $59.7M .rose 12.2 per cent, and all 1 divisions of the group maintained or increased turnover and profitability with the exception of the timber division, where sales were slightly above last year, but profits declined. The hardware division performed well and the Odlins Agencies and Electronics division, which operates as master agents for Philips Electrical Products, managed a substantially higher turnover and profit, because of increased availability of colour, and black and white TV.