There's mention here of ....
a large apartment complex ! How big and how tall we are yet to find out , but at least Plans are being drawn up ! :cheers:
Building blocks for the little guy
23 April 2006
A new venture will give investors with only small amounts of cash a slice of the property development action. By Greg Ninness.
St Laurence Group has started an investment company which will enable investors with small sums of cash to get involved in property developments.
Called the St Laurence Property Development Fund Ltd, it will offer staple investments in lots of $5000.
For every $5000 invested, investors will receive 500 shares at $1 each in the company and a $4500 secured, interest-bearing bond. The bond is projected to pay annual interest of 15% for an initial term of five years, giving an overall return of 13.5% for each $5000 parcel.
The company does not expect to pay dividends on the shares, but investors may receive a capital gain on them at the end of the term, when all the assets will be sold and the company wound up.
The company will invest in a range of property developments as a funder and equity partner, most likely taking a 50% stake in each project. This means that as each development is completed and sold, the company will receive interest on the development finance it provided plus a share of the development profits.
The downside is that as a shareholder, it will also be more heavily exposed to the risks of each development.
AdvertisementAdvertisementThe prospectus allows the company to undertake most types of property development in New Zealand and Australia. But it is likely much of the investment will be in the $3.5 billion Albany City project on Auckland's North Shore.
St Laurence is already heavily involved in the plan to build a large number of offices, shops and apartments on a 50ha site next to land where Westfield is developing what will be New Zealand's largest shopping mall.
In a complicated ownership structure, the freehold title to the Albany City site is owned by North Shore developer Rick Martin's Cornerstone Group.
St Laurence has joined forces with Symphony Projects, a company majority-owned by developer Colin Reynolds, to form Albany City Holdings Ltd, which has a perpetual leasehold interest over the entire site. This company, in which St Laurence has a 35% stake, acts as master developer for the project, on-selling individual sites to third party developers.
This puts St Laurence in the box seat to provide development finance for various projects within the development.
St Laurence managing director and majority shareholder Kevin Podmore said he had one project at Albany in his sights as an investment for Property Development Fund Ltd.
The was an apartment development called The Foundry being planned by developer Chris Minty.
Minty is a former managing director of Symphony Group - a separate company to Symphony Projects, but one in which Reynolds is a minority shareholder.
Podmore said The Foundry would suit the new company's investment criteria because it would be built in three stages, each stage taking about 18 months to complete construction and sell the individual apartments.
But Minty's plans weren't quite at the stage where the company was able to commit to it, Podmore said.
"We'd look to get involved once there's reasonable certainty in terms of consents being in place and those sorts of things," he said.
St Laurence is looking to sell 2000 investment parcels of $5000 each, with the ability to accept the same amount in oversubscriptions. This would give the new company $9m from the bonds and $1m in share capital, or up to double those amounts if fully oversubscribed.
Additionally, St Laurence Holdings will buy one share in the new company for each one issued to outside investors, giving it a 50% stake and doubling the company's equity.
All up, this could give St Laurence Property Development Fund Ltd up to $22m, enough to get involved in some substantial developments.
The main risk of this investment is that the money will be used purely to finance property development, which is an inherently risky activity, something Podmore acknowledged.
"It's seen as being most suitable for investors who have a reasonable tolerance for investment risk and who seek the opportunity for a higher return," he said.
"Or for investors who want to enter the property development market but are not able to fund such activities themselves."
