Bernard Hickey details the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9am in association with the BNZ, including news that South Canterbury Finance has received another injection of cash via George Kerr's Torchlight fund. It announced overnight that Torchlight would lend Allan Hubbard's Southbury Holdings NZ$22 million through a convertible note issue. Hubbard has then put this cash into fresh equity in South Canterbury South Canterbury and hopes this will be enough to get it an extension of the government guarantee until the end of 2011.
South Canterbury said it may set up a 'bad bank' to quarantine bad loans to comply with tough new Reserve Bank rules. Meanwhile, former TVNZ newsreader Richard Long told the NZHerald he feels 'really bad' about promoting Hanover Finance, saying he personally lost NZ$50,000.
Overseas, there were unexpected job losses disclosed overnight in the United States and Greek bond yields jumped on fresh concerns about the Eurozone/IMF bailout plan. Meanwhile, Australian retail sales fell 1.4% in February and building approvals fell 3.3%. Both were worse than expected. Some are now wondering whether the Reserve Bank of Australia will now hike its Official rate next week, as was previously expected.
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