Sandy Maier ruminates upon the company restructuring and
facing payouts, or rollovers, of more than a $1 billion in
debentures and bonds this year. Photo by Linda Robertson.
The new chief executive of beleaguered South
Canterbury Finance, Sandy Maier, is upbeat about saving the
southern lending giant. Business reporter Simon Hartley reviews
progress on the massive, and painful, restructuring of the
85-year-old company.
More than half the $500 million in distressed loans in South
Canterbury Finance's new "bad bank" division may be purchased
by two buyers, whittled down from a list of 14 possibles.
Overseas interests were included on the list.
Apart from equity-raising earlier this month of more than $1
billion, South Canterbury Finance has been "scrubbing its
books", and is placing its assets into three new divisions to
get itself back on track.
The divisions are good bank, bad bank and private equity
investments.
Barely 24 days ago, South Canterbury Finance may have gone
into receivership had it not obtained an extension to the
Government's deposit guarantee scheme.
South Canterbury Finance chief executive Sandy Maier on
property lending, such as the failed $50 million
redevelopment of Dunedin's chief post office into a
Hilton-managed hotel, which left South Canterbury Finance
holding claims for $7.5 million in loans and penalties.
Photo by Gerard O'Brien.
Chief executive Sandy Maier said it was not a foregone
conclusion South Canterbury Finance would sell the $272 million
of "clean value" assets in its bad bank portfolio to either of
the two bidders, but an announcement was expected in coming
weeks.
"Of about $500 million owed, we are getting about $1 million
a week.
"We face the problem of [maintaining] liquidity and capital.
"We do pay a big price to raise money ... used to pay
debentures and bonds".
"We have got to liquidate what doesn't fit.
"It [bad bank] has to be managed for an exit," he said of the
loans, which were made outside South Canterbury Finance's
usual lending base.
Mr Maier and chief financial officer David Jarman were in
Dunedin this week as part of a four-day roadshow of main
centres throughout the country "to get out into the
community", where they were talking directly to some of the
500 financial advisers and stockbrokers the company deals
with.
By the end of this week, Mr Maier expected $200 million of
"new" refinancing for the firm, after three months of
property sales.
Property investment was South Canterbury Finance's problem,
Mr Maier said.
The company had moved too far from its traditional
rural/farm-base lending, ending up with more than 30%, or
about 3000 loans, worth $477 million in property.
"South Canterbury is a complex beast, with a lot of arms and
legs," Mr Maier said.
When asked about the mortgage ranking, where more than 37% of
the loans were not on first mortgage basis, Mr Maier said he
had not broken down the lending tiers.
"If we've got assets that don't fit they must be merged [into
one of the three divisions] for sale," he said.
As an example of property lending gone bad, he cited
mezzanine-type funding arrangements, such as $10 million for
a property development where no interest was paid.
Instead, the initial $10 million accrued the interest.
"Property investment was [a] graveyard for a lot of people; a
boom-and-bust industry which absorbs capital for a long time.
"It was not a traditional activity for us," he said.
Mr Maier declined to talk about specific property loans,
deeming it unfair on those borrowers.
However, the proposed $50 million redevelopment of Dunedin's
chief post office into a Hilton-managed hotel is one example
of property lending gone wrong.
That development, prompting a mortgagee sale, left South
Canterbury Finance holding claims for $7.5 million in loans
and penalties, after the demise of the developer McEwan Group
and the bankruptcy of Dan McEwan.
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