Council To Launch Bond Issue

Manukau City Council is planning a retail bond issue to raise up to $350 million, most of which will be on-lent to other councils in the Auckland region.

The move comes at the request of the Auckland Transition Agency.

“This will provide initially the existing Auckland councils and after 1 November, Auckland Council, with further funding to provide the assets, services and facilities needed for the greater Auckland region’s future development,” Finance Director Dave Foster says.

The bonds would be secured over the rates of Manukau City Council. After 1 November 2010, Auckland Council would assume the obligations and rights relating to the bonds. The full details of the offer will be in the investment statement which is expected to be released in late August in time for the offer to open in early September.

Manukau City has appointed ANZ and Craigs Investment Partners as Arrangers for the offer. The syndicate members are ANZ, Craigs Investment Partners, First NZ Capital Securities, Goldman Sachs JBWere (NZ) and Forsyth Barr.

No indication of interest will involve an obligation or commitment of any kind.

No money is currently being sought and no applications for the bonds will be accepted or money received until the subscriber has received an investment statement.

ENDS

Gordon Campbell: Offering A Solution To The US Hostility To Islam

Bigotry has been having a bumper week, worldwide. Thankfully, the plans by the pastor of a tiny evangelical church in Florida to burn the Koran have been called off. Yet those plans were only the latest ripple from a similarly irrational outburst of hostility against plans to build a Muslim community centre a few blocks away from the former World Trade Centre site. That New York controversy also whipped up opposition to Muslim community centres across America in places like Murfreesboro, Tennessee and elsewhere.

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