NEW ZEALAND'S CREDIT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19939, 7 May 1928, Page 8

NEW ZEALAND'S CREDIT.

LONDON LOAN SUCCESS.

SEVENFOLD SUBSCRIPTION. £35,000,000 OFFERED. SCRIP QUOTED AT PREMIUM. Australian Press Association —United Service LONDON, May 4. The cash subscriptions to the New Zealand loan of £5,000,000 exceeded £35,000,000. The" applicants received only 14 per cent, of their applications. The scrip of the loan to-day is quoted at nine-sixteenths premium, i.e., at £95 Is 3d.

The remarkable success of the loan, following the comparative neglect of recent Australian issues, is evidence of the continued high credit of New Zealand in the London market. Two years ago, immediately after the termination of the general strike, the Dominion's loan evoked a phenomenal subscription list, the applications for £6,000,000 of 5 per cent, stock amounting to £119,600,000. Last year, in normal conditions, the annual loan was again The amount offered was not but the excess was probably not very large, as applicants for up to £SOOO received full allotments, those for larger amounts receiving 80 per cent. The claim was made in last year's Budget that the terms of the 1927 issue were " better than those of any other similar issue" of the year, but this was hardly correct. The 1927 record for an independent colonial issue belongs to the Government of Nigeria which, at the end of January, gained the advantage of a buoyant tone in the market and a scarcity of long-term trustee securities for a 5 per cent, loan at par, and secured three .or four fold subscription. In October and November, South Africa and Kenya Colony issued loans on the same terms as New Zealand —5 per cents, at 99^ —and the former, which appears to be appraised on the same level as New Zealand, obtained a proportionately heavier oversubscription than the Dominion's issue in May. It is noteworthy that a loan for Palestine was issued in November at 100 A, but this was guaranteed by the British Government.