Perpetual Aiming to Reopen Frozen Trusts `Soon,' Deverall Says

By Jacob Greber

Oct. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Perpetual Ltd. aims to lift a block on redemptions from its income and mortgage funds as soon as possible, the head of the Australian fund manager told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in an interview.

Reopening the company's funds, frozen this week after a surge in redemption requests, is in Perpetual's interests, as well as that of the government and investors, Chief Executive Officer David Deverall told ABC television today.

Perpetual, which had A$29.4 billion ($18.2 billion) in funds managed at Sept. 30, was among several Australian asset managers to suspend redemptions after the government's decision to introduce a guarantee on Australian bank deposits triggered a surge in investors asking to withdraw their money. Treasurer Wayne Swan said on Oct. 24 that bank deposits over A$1 million will have to pay a fee to obtain the guarantee.

``The word `guarantee' is clearly a very, very important word in the minds of consumers at the moment,'' Deverall told the broadcaster.

Perpetual has been telling its clients that income payments from their funds will continue, Deverall told the ABC's Inside Business program. He also said the company is looking forward to talking to the government and may ask it to extend the guarantee system to cash management trusts and possibly mortgage trusts.

Swan also said on Oct. 24 that the guarantee will be extended to include foreign bank branches, ``but with no fee- free threshold.''

To contact the reporter for this story: Jacob Greber in Sydney at jgreber@bloomberg.net