Holmes a Court to Sell More Assets

Financier Robert Holmes a Court admitted to shareholders of Bell Group Ltd. that the company is overexposed in the stock market and said Wednesday that the firm will sell more assets in the wake of the crash.

Holmes a Court, Bell Group’s chairman, told a packed annual shareholders meeting that in recent weeks the company had raised 1.4 billion Australian dollars, or about $984 million, from the sale of assets.

That includes the sale last month of 12 million shares of Texaco Inc. to Trans World Airlines Inc. for $348 million.

More assets will be sold until a total of 2 billion Australian dollars has been raised, Holmes a Court said.

The sales reflect heavy pressure on the financier to raise cash following the stock market crash, in which Holmes a Court lost, by some estimates, up to $600 million. He lost an estimated $96 million on the sale of the Texaco shares.

The financier conceded that Bell Group had bought too heavily into the equity market.