17 Aug 2011

South Canterbury Finance yet to sell bad-bank

5:56 am on 17 August 2011

South Canterbury Finance has only its bad-bank to sell, after the Nomura investment bank in Japan bought its consumer, business and rural loans.

The loans were valued at $123 million, but receivers at McGrathNicol say the price paid for them is confidential.

The loan portfolios are the last of South Canterbury Finance's secure good-bank business to be sold.

William Black from McGrathNicol says now only the more risky assets, the bad-bank, are left.

He says the most significant assets left to go are the bad-bank unit, the asset management loans and South Canterbury Finance's shareholding in Dairy Holdings Ltd, which is a 33.6% shareholding.

Mr Black says the bad-bank assets are more challenging to sell and there is a lot of work involved in managing each of the loans and maximising their recoveries.

Further update

The receivers are due to release their next update in October, which will show how much money has been repaid to the Crown.

McGrathNicol has also sold SCF's Helicopters New Zealand for $160 million, and $44 million dollars for its 80% stake in Scales Corporation.

The proceeds will help repay almost $1.8 billion paid by the Government as part of the retail deposit guarantee when the company went into receivership on 31 August last year.