County to unfreeze funds
County hopes to unfreeze its five suspended cash trusts by the end of August.
The fund manager froze the trusts on August 7 after it experienced liquidity problems with the Loy Yang power station fixed interest securities.
The trusts affected are the Enhanced Cash Trust, Indexed Bond Trust, Enhanced Cash Pooled Superannuation Trust, Lifestyle Enhanced Cash Trust and the Direct Enhanced Cash Units.
The exposure of the Loy Yang units is $42 million out of a total of $350 million on issue. A spokesman said that at present there was no market for the securities due to ownership changes pending at the Victorian power station. County emphasised that the securities were not in default, just its valuation of them was not being achieved in the marketplace.
This, combined with outflows, has raised liquidity problems for the products despite the Loy Yang holdings generally being about 8 per cent of assets.
The securities have a 30-year maturity from the date on inception, which was 1997. The security holders receive a quarterly interest payment and the yield is about 8 per cent.
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