Irongate risks suspension from NZX on late report filing

Thursday 1st July 2010

Irongate Property, one of the units of the St Laurence group that escaped receivership, failed to meet the deadline to file its annual report and risks having its $28.9 million of NZX-listed bonds suspended.

The property manager, which also has shares that trade on the Unlisted platform, was required to file its latest accounts by the end of trading yesterday. It now has until July 7 to lodge its accounts for the year ended March 31 or face suspension the following day.

The risk of suspension may be academic as Irongate’s July 15, 2010, bonds are close to maturity and the record date for the final interest payment is tomorrow. They last traded on June 9, when 21,000 of the securities changed hands, according to the NZX website.

The bonds have a coupon of 9.25% and yielded 120% based on the last trade, according to NZX. It also has about $1 million of floating-rate bonds maturing on the same date.

Irongate disclosed its results for the year ended March 31 to Unlisted, showing a net loss of $50.5 million, down from a year-earlier loss of $87.2 million. It cited a $34.3 million drop in value of its property portfolio as a result of sales and revaluations. It had $14 million of one-time charges.

Irongate general manager Chris Minty said in that announcement that the firm “expects to be in a position to repay” the July 15 bonds through asset sales.

Still, “Irongate acknowledges that in the current environment a level of uncertainty still exists about the ability of the company to repay these bonds in July” because it hinges on execution of the asset sales programme, he said.

Minty didn’t immediately return calls today.

Irongate’s Unlisted shares last traded on June 24 at 6 cents.

Businesswire.co.nz

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