$4M loss for Broadbank

Press, 5 August 1985, Page 5

$4M loss for Broadbank

PA Auckland A loss of more than $4 million from foreign exchange trading has been reported by a New Zealand foreign exchange dealer, Broadbank Corporation, Ltd. The chairman of Broadbank, Mr H. A. Fletcher, said last evening that there had been foreign exchange trading in excess of authorised limits. Broadbank had accepted the resignation of two executives in that section. Mr Fletcher said the transactions, between June 6 and July 12, had resulted in an after-tax loss of $4.39 million. The abnormal loss reduced Broadbank’s expected earnings for the year from $8.5 million to $4.1 million. Shareholders’ funds at the June 30 balance were $50.5 million. Mr Fletcher, who is also group managing director of Fletcher Challenge, of which Broadbank is a wholly owned subsidiary, said Fletcher Challenge still expected to meet its previously announced earnings estimate of between $lBO million and $lB5 million for

the June year. The biggest publicly reported loss in foreign exchange dealing by a New Zealand financial institution was that of the Bank of New Zealand in the 1983 March year — a $7.2 million loss from dealings by the Singapore branch of the