CONVERSION LOAN

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXX, Issue 8444, 25 March 1933, Page 3

CONVERSION LOAN

go PER CENT. OFFERED TO FRIDAY TOTAL OF £104,016,337 8 PER CENT. MORE EXPECTED Special Message WELLINGTON, Friday. Ninety per cent, of the internal debt has been offered to the Government for conversion, and holders or the remaining 10 per cent, have only a few more hours in which to make their application as under the terms of the Debt Conversion Act the time definitely closes to-night. The returns requisitioned late last night from the banks, post offices and district treasury offices in all parts of New Zealand brought the total offer up to £104,016,337, which represents slightly over 90 per cent, of the whole debt of £115,000,000. Similar returns will be called for to-night so that although the final result of the conversion will not be known until next week it will be possible by tomorrow to give a very fair approximation.

COMPARATIVE RESULTS Stock in respect of which dissents have been lodged is now £472,000, or considerably less than half of one pec cent, of the total conversions. Since the .last few days have shown no marked increase in the notices of dissent it seems safe to predict that the conversions, assented and ‘‘silent , will represent as much as 9S or 99 per cent, of the total debt. The conversion of the British War Loan last year under different conditions was 92 per cent, successful. In the Australian debt conversion of 1931 out of a total of £556,000,000 the assented stock was £487,000,000 (88 per cent.), the dissented stock £18,000,000 (3 per cent.) arid the “silent” conversions £50,000,000 (9 per cent). It is therefore already clear that both the percentage of conversions actually assented and the total percentage of conversions will be greater in New Zealand than they were in the Commonwealth.

THE FINAL REMINDER “All I can do now,” said the Minister of Finance, Hon. J. G. Coates, to-day, "is to remind bondholders that to-day is the last day on which their applications for conversion may be posted or lodged with the banks, post offices or district Treasury offices. I.have many times stressed the value of a unanimous response to our appeal. We are nearly there now and I am confident that when the final result is known it will be very gratifying indeed. I know that some of the details of the scheme have been criticised among the public, but I have,found, no one who can deny that the benefits of conversion are real and are essential to the country’s welfare. And that after all is the bondholder's main concern, for he must guard his country’s welfare if he will guard his own.”