Hanover reckons its rating to be BB
But the four finance companies with $1 billion or more in assets, which includes Hanover, are in a much better position, he says.
While debenture sales through brokers is much slower, Hanover is still experience strong sales directly to its existing retail base, he says.
Schmidt says Hanover will support whatever regulatory regime for finance companies that the Ministry of Economic Development comes up with and that it expects to be able to get a credit rating of "BB" or better.
He says he expects interest rates won’t go up further and will eventually fall, although when is unknown, and that will underpin current property prices – about 51% of Hanover’s lending is on property development and another 14% is on property investment.
Hanover, yesterday, reported a 34% increase in annual net profit to $105.1 million and lifted its assets 4.6% to $1.82 billion, 24% of which are international assets, mostly in Australia.
The major reason for the big increase was a 60.6% increase to $51.4 million from its new funds management, including private equity, division.