“SEEMS HARD TO BEAT”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 561, 14 January 1929, Page 10

“SEEMS HARD TO BEAT”

NEW ZEALAND’S LATEST LOAN OFFER FAVOURABLE COMMENT (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) Reed. 9.5 a.m. LONDON, Saturday. Despite the fact that two large loans, Indian and New Zealand, made their appearance, both were cordially welcomed, as the market was not oversupplied with investment stocks of this class. The underwriters received 23 per cent, of the Indian loan; but the cash portion of the New Zealand loan, which had received most favourable Press comments, was oversubscribed the day before the date was announced for the closing of the lists. Tlio conversion portion of the issue remains open for another fortnight, and a satisfactory response is expected. Though some newspaper critics suggest that the conversion terms do not appear very generous when compared with the issue price of the cash offer, it will be surprising if holders of maturing four per cents do not accept the offer, for the inducement to take stock yielding over 96 per* cent, for a period of 20 and possibly 30 years is great. If financial and industrial conditions continue to improve, as is now pretty generally expected, though of course there may be a temporary setback, the tendency will be for borrowers to pay a lower rate of interest, and it may not be many years before the interest rate on new Dominion loans will be four per cent., or even lower. So that for sound, profitable investment, New Zealand four and a-half seems hard to beat.