February 18, 2012 5:16pm by David Farrar

Cactus Kate fisking Russel Norman

Cactus Kate fisks claims by Russel Norman. She blogs:

Kermit has an academically lazy post on The NZ Superannuation Fund where apparently it has

“decided to take a $23 million bet on a property development company with significant exposure to China — a country where some reports say that there are 64 million vacant apartments”.

Kermit has got all confused comparing SHKP to pathetically run Landcorp in New Zealand and is worried about this

Kermit seems to be Kate’s name for Dr Norman. She notes:

Kermit then has a Hickeyesque moment where he predicts the collapse of China because Hong Kong listed company SHKP is developing new cities and starts bagging the Super Fund for investing in it …

Is China the next big property bubble on the brink of collapse?

The Chinese Government has spent much of its massive export revenues on building brand new cities. Trouble is, not many Chinese people can afford the prices of new apartments and some of the cities have become ghost cities — their emptiness

Thank you for the concern Mr Frog.

Kate knows a bit about this company, as they are her landlord:

SHKP just so happens to be my landlord so I know a bit about them. They develop huge luxury buildings and own a truckload of land in Hong Kong. All the tallest buildings IFC1, IFC2 and ICC were developed by SHKP. The building I live in is built to an extremely high standard.

Here is an interactive map that shows how much of Hong Kong they own and how little of China.

The major owners the Kwok Family have one of the most interesting histories of any company in Hong Kong. SHKP was founded in 1963 by the family and listed in 1972.

In fact it seems SHKP is almost worth more than the entire NZ Super Fund.

If SHKP tank it will be because the bottom has fallen out of China and with it Hong Kong and quite frankly, export reliant New Zealand will have a hell of a lot more to worry about than .1% of its Super Fund if this happens.

Norman is simply disgracefully playing the China card and pretending he knows more than the Super Fund Managers. During the Crafar sale he complained New Zealanders cannot buy land in China, yet now he’s arguing that the NZ Superannuation Fund should have no exposure in China to a potential “bubble” and not be investing in a property company.

Newsflash – Kermit doesn’t know anything about numbers and should sit down and do what he is good at, telling farmers they pollute.

This is one of the things which concerns me over the NZ Super Fund. Politicians will always think they know better than the fund managers and they will start to tell them where to invest with the money forcefully taken from us by taxation.

Dr Norman could be Minister of Finance in a future Labour-Green Government. Will he continue to second guess the fund managers?