27 Feb 2013

More investments sold by GPG

7:12 pm on 27 February 2013

Guiness Peat Group has sold $689 million worth of investments and remains on track to sell the rest by September this year.

The investment concern is winding itself up to concentrate on Coats, a threadmaking business.

The Sir Ron Brierley-founded investment concern is selling nearly all its assets, and returning the cash to investors, but will keep its threadmaking business, Coats, and rename it.

GPG chairman Rob Campbell said efforts to turnaround Coat's performance are starting to bear fruit.

The company has returned $181 million to investors so far and has bought back another $67 million worth of shares as at Wednesday last week.

The company has five major asset lefts, including its 34% stake in Tower, which sold its insurance arm for $79 million to Fisher Funds on Tuesday.

GPG reported a loss of $6 million dollars in 2012.

Shares were unchanged at 59 cents each on Wednesday.