This follows the recent establishment of SCF subsidiary Wellington Finance and expands the SCF Group to 11 finance companies.

Kelt Finance will manage lending principally in the Hawke’s Bay, a role that was previously managed out of the Palmerston North office of South Canterbury Finance.

Compass on course
Compass Capital has been re-rated by Property Investment Research and has maintained its investment grade rating.

Its Secured Bond has a security rating of 4 stars. Security ratings range between 0 stars and 5 stars with half star increments, where a rating of 2 ½ stars and above is considered investment grade.

PIR is an Australian independent specialist research group on property investments.

PPCS bond yields leap in `scary' signal
Bond yields for PPCS leapt 4 percentage points late last month around the time the Otago meat exporter reported another ugly half year result. [MORE].

Allied goes unconditional on Nationwide
Allied Farmers has gone unconditional on its purchase of Nationwide Finance. Settlement is scheduled for May 1.

The conditions of the purchase agreement, including the approval of the Allied Farmers Limited shareholders, the consent of the trustee for Nationwide Finance, and completion of the audit of Nationwide’s financial statements for the six months to 31 December 2006, were all satisfied as expected on or before 30 April. More than 99% of the votes cast at the special meeting to ratify the deal were in favour of it.

The purchase price will be confirmed on completion of final settlement accounts but is expected to be around $30.5 million to reflect changes in net asset value from December 31 up to the date of settlement.