Stockbroking firm returns to central city

MICHAEL BERRY

Last updated 09:29 16/07/2012

IAIN MCGREGOR/Fairfax NZ

MOVING IN: Hamilton Hindin Greene chief executive Ian Perry carries files into his new central city office on the corner of Worcester and Manchester streets.

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Long-established Christchurch stockbroking firm Hamilton Hindin Greene has returned to the central city.

Its new second-floor office, on the corner of Manchester and Worcester streets, is on the edge of the red zone, diagonally opposite the Trinity Congregational Church, which is under repair.

Hamilton Hindin Greene moved into the third floor of the BDO Spicers Building only a day and a half before the February 22 quake and has spent the past year and a half above a marine sales warehouse in Lincoln Rd.

The property recently sold and the firm was given a month to find another home as the new owner planned to raze the building for a development.

Hamilton Hindin Greene chief executive Ian Perry said the new building replacing the Westend Jewellers, which was badly damaged in the September quake, was going to be finished just in time for the firm to move in.
Perry said the timing was perfect.

''The planets aligned really. We wanted to come back in here (the central business district).

''It's central and we believe it's going to be a bit of a hospitality area round here.''

With the Rendezvous and Novotel hotels a stone's throw from his firm's office, Perry believed there was a good chance the convention centre would be built nearby.

''And car parking's easy.''

Although the firm would be lonely for a while, he was excited to be part of the central city's rebirth, he said.

Hamilton Hindin Greene combines five stockbroking practices that spanned more than 100 years of private sharebroking in Canterbury.

The firm lost about three staff after the quakes, leaving it with nine. Once the firm settled in it would begin hiring again, he said.

Building owner, KPI Rothschild Property Group managing director Shaun Stockman, said it had been a long road to rebuilding.

Building consent was about to be approved on February 22, 2011, and after that the design was revisited.

He was still looking for a tenant for the bottom floor. The other half of the second floor has been taken by project manager RCP.

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