VOLUNTARY

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 226, 22 April 1933, Page 5

VOLUNTARY

I CONVERSION OPERATION

i Mr. Coafes' Contentions

"A POLITE LETTER"

; Press Association.—Copyright. Auckland. April 21.—" I say ■ flip conversion operation was ! voluntary," said the Minister of Finance i (the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coatcs) in an adI dress to the Auckland Creditmen's Club i to-day. "Certainly a polite letter was ! written to the holders of securities but | it would have paid some of them to i dissent notwithstanding interest tax. j The Minister announced that "disspnts" j had been reduced from £780.000 to about ! £500.000 and further "dissents" v/ere beI ing withdrawn each day. ; Mr. Coates pointed out that £99 15s was ! offered by buyers for converted stock | last week and there were no sellers. j With brokerage that meant £IOO ss. It I was a great tribute to the success of the ' conversion that the stock had never j fallen below £97 10s and had since re- ; In a statement subsequently the Min- : ister said it might not be generally | known that a loan of approximately | £5,000.000 was due to mature on August i 15. The Government might reasonably ! have anticipated that a fairly large peri centage of holders of that loan would 1 elect to dissent from conversion and ob- | tain repayment of their capital on the ! existing maturity date. He was pleased ! to say. however, that securities to the j value of less than £500.000 in that loan j had been the subject of dissent notices. jNo greater evidence could be obtained ! of the willingness of investors to aid the \ Government in effecting the financial ad-

justments necessary to meet the present

conditions. Mr. Coates si id the Local Government Loans Board had been asked to co-oper-ate wkh the Government in keeping interest rates at the new low level fixed by statute. There need be no fear that new issues would come on the market at higher rates and thus tend to depreciate the securities of present holders. The Loans Board was also considering the question of conversion schemes for local authorities and it was hoped to formulate model -chemes shortly.