KEY POINTS:
The AMP fund which suspended payments yesterday owns a big stake in some of the best New Zealand investment properties.
Murray Gribben, managing director of AMP Capital NZ, said 75 per cent of the assets in the frozen AMP Capital NZ Property Fund were units in the AMP Property Portfolio.
That portfolio - known as APP and managed by Stephen Costley - has properties worth $1 billion-plus and last year it bought the 5ha Lion Nathan brewery site in Newmarket for $162 million.
It plans a major apartment, shopping and mixed-use redevelopment once Lion leaves.
APP has more than 50 commercial office, industrial, retail, hotel and development properties in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch, Nelson and Tauranga. The total portfolio value at March 31 last year was $1.414 billion.
APP owns a big collection of Wellington buildings which it rents to government departments. These buildings include the Vogel complex and Bowen House.
It got a clutch of prime real estate from the once-listed and much-prized Capital Properties which AMP battled to take over and absorb two years ago.
A stake in Mt Maunganui's Bayfair Shopping Centre, the much-praised Botany Town Centre in South Auckland, LynnMall in West Auckland, Telecom House in Wellington and The Palms shopping centre in Christchurch are just some of the other properties owned by APP.
Gribben expressed dismay about investor action, saying these property assets were high-quality.
"It's a great portfolio and it's difficult to speculate what people's motives are with respect to their investments, but the market has experienced such extraordinary conditions that people are wanting to redeem their units," he said.
"The important message here is people need to understand these are high-quality and long-term assets."
AMP did not plan to sell any stakes in these properties but Gribben said investor confidence was being hit hard.
Listed office landlord AMP NZ Office Trust is distancing itself from the troubled arm of the finance giant.
Rob Lang, chief executive of the trust's manager, said his entity was not affected by issues at AMP Capital NZ Property Fund.
The troubled business had no bearing on the trust's performance, operations, investments and the ability of investors to freely trade in its listed securities, Lang said.
The trust owned real estate valued at $1.4 billion and was the largest investor in prime commercial office property and was a separate entity which remained unaffected by the freeze, Lang said. It is managed by AMP Haumi Management, a joint venture between AMP Capital Investors and Haumi, a subsidiary of a major sovereign wealth fund.
