APH vows to forge ahead with plan

By ANNE GIBSON

Australasian Property Holdings is vowing to continue with a residential development, despite a decade of setbacks which have included legal and zoning issues.

APH is one of about a dozen property companies and trusts listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange, even though its main asset is in Australia .

APH managing director and executive chairman Tracey Lake was in New Zealand last week to run a series of roadshows for the 4900 investors here as well as holding the annual general meeting in Auckland on Friday.

Mr Lake, who lives in Sydney, said APH's shareholder base had dropped from 5200 people to 4900 since the company listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange last year.

He also acknowledged difficulties with the company's main project - a controversial residential/golf resort in the Blue Mountains, one and a half hours' drive from Sydney's CBD.

APH's dream is The Escarpments. It wants to build 98 residential units around the public Katoomba Golf Course - fairway villas attached together in groups of three and four, as well as two-level terraced unit blocks, with eight to 12 residences in each.

A 120-room hotel is also planned, but Mr Lake acknowledges now would not be a good time to further that, given tourism problems following September 11.

But The Escarpments has been dogged by environmental issues, partly because the headwaters of Katoomba Falls Creek run through the golf course.

The river feeds a dam which supplies Sydney's drinking water.

"We've been to the Land Environment Court in Sydney, the Supreme Court there, then the Court of Appeal, where we lost and got a judgment against us," Mr Lake said. However, he said the Blue Mountains City Council decided to rezone the land to allow the development to go ahead.

The preliminaries have already cost $2 million in consultant's fees, and about $300,000 in legal fees.

In the meantime, Mr Lake said it would cost him "about $A900,000" to increase his shareholding from 23.57 per cent to 40 per cent, buying out Quotidian No 2, owned by a fellow Sydney businessman and associate, and Keith Walker and associated interests, who Mr Lake said were friends who had retired and simply "wanted out".

The increased shareholding was not a sign Mr Lake was mounting a takeover.

"I would not have taken 10 years to resurrect the company and list in Australia if I wanted to privatise it," he said, referring to hopes that APH can be listed across the Tasman next year.

As for APH's rights issue, Mr Lake hopes it will raise $500,000, "mainly to downgrade our debt levels".

So how many of the 98 units has the company managed to build and sell so far at The Escarpments?

He said that 10 per cent deposits had been made on only seven units. But he said titles were issued for some of the sections only in June.

APH does not pay dividends and has no immediate plans to do so.

Australasian Property Holdings