Garry Topp, a director at Nomura International said on Thursday that the company hoped to raise more than $100 million for a new open-ended global fund of funds invested in property securities which offered investors downside protection.
Based in Ireland, Nomura said its Global Property 80% Protected Fund would initially be spread across six funds run by Morgan Stanley, Henderson, and Credit Suisse, with each focusing on European, U.S. or Asian securities such as property company shares an real estate investment trusts (REITs). The fund's relative regional weightings will be reviewed every quarter. Nomura said it will charge a 1.5% annual management fee for the fund. The fund has invested 100% in property from the start, but wants to to ensure a continuous level of protection for 80% of the fund's highest value.
Topp said property securities offered investors a reasonable proxy for direct property and provided a more flexible form of global real estate investment. "The benefits of liquidity is that it allows people to move around the different parts of the property cycle around the world, allowing them to move between residential developers in the U.S., say, and offices in Australia," he said.
Topp said the fund was primarily aimed at the high-net-worth and the sophisticated end of the retail investment market. But he said it would also interest institutional investors looking to take some profits on their existing property investments and to put the proceeds to work in a liquid and diversified global property portfolio that offered them protection over any future gains.
The European branch of Nomura is headquartered in London, with offices in major financial centers across Europe. Nomura works closely with Asian and American networks, as well as with Tokyo. Their four business lines (Global Markets, Investment Banking, Merchant Banking and Asset Management) are co-ordinated globally, however each European operating entity is incorporated and regulated separately and reports to local management as well as to Tokyo-based business heads.
1 Dec 2006
Judge Favours Hedge Funds in Company Sale
Delaware Vice Chancellor Stephen Lamb ordered Metromedia International Group Inc. to hold a shareholder vote on its plan for asset sale.
The deal follows years of lawsuits among its 20% owner, John Kluge, and 18% owner Stuart Subotnick, against minority investors, many of them hedge funds, over the company's failure to hold annual shareholders' meetings or file income statements with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Metromedia claimed that since it has been unable to file financial statements for several years due to accounting issues, it can not legally hold a shareholder vote on the sale. Instead, it planned to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to execute the sale, even though it is not insolvent.
Hedge funds Esopus Creek Value LP and Black Horse Capital, which together hold 8.2% of the over-the-counter traded stock, sued the company and certain directors on Aug. 18 in Delaware to force it to hold a vote on the sale.
According to court documents released on Thursday, Judge Lamb favoured the hedge funds that sued the communications company. He ruled that the proposed sale has "glaring inequities," in that it allows preferred stockholders to vote on the deal but not common shareholders. He also ruled that preferred shareholders would get "excess" payments through the sale compared with those accorded common stockholders. "Metromedia's proposed transactional scheme, though technically within the letter of the law, works a profound inequity upon the company's common stockholders," Lamb ruled.
Metromedia, founded by billionaire media mogul John Kluge, had previously disclosed that it plans to sell its main asset, a 50.1% stake in Magticom, a leading wireless phone provider in the Republic of Georgia, for $480 million. The proposed buyers of Metromedia include Emergent in Salford Georgia, of which Badri Patarkatsishvili is a major client, and Istithmar, described in the company's press release as a "leading alternative investment house in Dubai, United Arab Emirates."
The deal follows years of lawsuits among its 20% owner, John Kluge, and 18% owner Stuart Subotnick, against minority investors, many of them hedge funds, over the company's failure to hold annual shareholders' meetings or file income statements with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Metromedia claimed that since it has been unable to file financial statements for several years due to accounting issues, it can not legally hold a shareholder vote on the sale. Instead, it planned to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to execute the sale, even though it is not insolvent.
Hedge funds Esopus Creek Value LP and Black Horse Capital, which together hold 8.2% of the over-the-counter traded stock, sued the company and certain directors on Aug. 18 in Delaware to force it to hold a vote on the sale.
According to court documents released on Thursday, Judge Lamb favoured the hedge funds that sued the communications company. He ruled that the proposed sale has "glaring inequities," in that it allows preferred stockholders to vote on the deal but not common shareholders. He also ruled that preferred shareholders would get "excess" payments through the sale compared with those accorded common stockholders. "Metromedia's proposed transactional scheme, though technically within the letter of the law, works a profound inequity upon the company's common stockholders," Lamb ruled.
Metromedia, founded by billionaire media mogul John Kluge, had previously disclosed that it plans to sell its main asset, a 50.1% stake in Magticom, a leading wireless phone provider in the Republic of Georgia, for $480 million. The proposed buyers of Metromedia include Emergent in Salford Georgia, of which Badri Patarkatsishvili is a major client, and Istithmar, described in the company's press release as a "leading alternative investment house in Dubai, United Arab Emirates."
Judge Favours Hedge Funds in Company Sale
Delaware Vice Chancellor Stephen Lamb ordered Metromedia International Group Inc. to hold a shareholder vote on its plan for asset sale, the deal follows years of lawsuits among its 20% owner, John Kluge, and 18% owner Stuart Subotnick, against minority investors, many of them hedge funds, over the company's failure to hold annual shareholders' meetings or file income statements with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Metromedia claimed that since it has been unable to file financial statements for several years due to accounting issues, it can not legally hold a shareholder vote on the sale. Instead, it planned to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to execute the sale, even though it is not insolvent.
Esopus Creek Value LP and Black Horse Capital, which together hold 8.2% of the over-the-counter traded stock, sued the company and certain directors on Aug. 18 in Delaware to force it to hold a vote on the sale.
According to court documents released on Thursday, Judge Lamb favoured the hedge funds that sued the communications company. He ruled that the proposed sale has "glaring inequities," in that it allows preferred stockholders to vote on the deal but not common shareholders. He also ruled that preferred shareholders would get "excess" payments through the sale compared with those accorded common stockholders. "Metromedia's proposed transactional scheme, though technically within the letter of the law, works a profound inequity upon the company's common stockholders," Lamb ruled.
Metromedia, founded by billionaire media mogul John Kluge, had previously disclosed that it plans to sell its main asset, a 50.1% stake in Magticom, a leading wireless phone provider in the Republic of Georgia, for $480 million. The proposed buyers of Metromedia include Emergent in Salford Georgia, of which Badri Patarkatsishvili is a major client, and Istithmar, described in the company's press release as a "leading alternative investment house in Dubai, United Arab Emirates."
Metromedia claimed that since it has been unable to file financial statements for several years due to accounting issues, it can not legally hold a shareholder vote on the sale. Instead, it planned to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to execute the sale, even though it is not insolvent.
Esopus Creek Value LP and Black Horse Capital, which together hold 8.2% of the over-the-counter traded stock, sued the company and certain directors on Aug. 18 in Delaware to force it to hold a vote on the sale.
According to court documents released on Thursday, Judge Lamb favoured the hedge funds that sued the communications company. He ruled that the proposed sale has "glaring inequities," in that it allows preferred stockholders to vote on the deal but not common shareholders. He also ruled that preferred shareholders would get "excess" payments through the sale compared with those accorded common stockholders. "Metromedia's proposed transactional scheme, though technically within the letter of the law, works a profound inequity upon the company's common stockholders," Lamb ruled.
Metromedia, founded by billionaire media mogul John Kluge, had previously disclosed that it plans to sell its main asset, a 50.1% stake in Magticom, a leading wireless phone provider in the Republic of Georgia, for $480 million. The proposed buyers of Metromedia include Emergent in Salford Georgia, of which Badri Patarkatsishvili is a major client, and Istithmar, described in the company's press release as a "leading alternative investment house in Dubai, United Arab Emirates."
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