NAB shafting, capital raisings, pokies, council taxes, REA Group, Laker, Richies and much more
February 2, 2010
Dear Mayne Reporters,
I'm meant to be preparing for a public council meeting tonight whilst also battling the dreaded winter lurgy, but the National Australia Bank has so enraged its small shareholders that I'm instead out of the sick bed with this missive for your attention.
NAB's staggering mistreatment of small shareholders
NAB has today produced one of the biggest shaftings of retail investors in history when it refused to expand the arbitrary cap of $750 million for its current share purchase plan, even after being deluged with a record $2.6 billion worth of applications. Check out the announcement here.
Investors will all be scaled back to just 28.8% of their application and with the shares today up 64c to $27.32, the decision has collectively cost retail investors more than $500 million, although the stock would have weakened today if all $2.6 billion had been accepted.
That said, NAB's institutional investors are today rolling in extra profits because the 93 million shares they were selectively placed at $21.50 on July 31 are now showing a paper profit of $541 million.
Whilst retail investors represent about 40% of NAB's share register, they will only be issued 27% of the new shares in this current capital raising and the paper profit on the 34.88 million shares that will be issued to retail investors on Friday is today only $203 million.
What makes the NAB situation even worse is that it did a $3 billion institutional placement at $20 a share late last year and then only raised $250 million from retail investors in the follow-up SPP.
If NAB needed more capital, it should have only proceeded with another SPP. Instead, it did not another $2 billion institutional placement to the big end of town and wouldn't even guarantee retail investors their pro-rata share.
These retail rip-offs are getting out of hand. The NAB AGM is in December and the directors are clearly asking for someone to run for the board on a platform to represent retail investors.
Faced with a similar situation last month, ANZ threw out its $350 million arbitrary cap and accepted all $2.2 billion worth of applications.
The contrast with NAB is stark indeed and makes our most recent Fairfax column - Why the banks are always b*stards - even more relevent.
ASIC to take over some ASX regulatory functions
The arrogant big banks would do well to take note that dominant monopolies aren't doing too well with the Rudd Government. Sol Trujillo and Donald McGauchie were quickly out the door after the government called Telstra'a bluff on broadband and now the ASX has been largely stripped of its supervisory powers in a major win for ASIC.
The Chris Bowen announcement and ASX response were suitably measured but make no mistake, this is a very big call which will weaken the ASX monopoly.
New ASX chairman David Gonski has been doing a much better job on supervision than his predecessor Maurice Newman, but the damage was already done as was partly explained during this interview on ABC NewsRadio this morning.
Besides, there was an inherent logic about stripping ASX of its supervisory powers with the advent of competition, which might finally arrive some time in the next five years.
The expanded ASIC Jail List
Is ASIC an effective corporate cop that should be trusted with greater market supervision? You be the judge as this is the list of 347 people the plod has sent to jail since it was established in January 1991.
ASIC averages about 22 jailings a year but most of them are relative unknowns as the big fish largely escape with their liberty. Anyway, here are the latest entries on our mega white collar jail list but they certainly aren't what you'd call household names:
10 July 2009 - Mr Sonatane Hafoka of Shalvey, NSW, was sentenced to 6 months imprisonment, but was immediately suspended upon Mr Hafoka entering into a four year good behaviour bond and paying an amount of $1,000. On 10 March 2009, Mr Hafoka pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting Mr Atan Kassongo, of Castle Hill, NSW, to unlawfully allow the early access of superannuation benefits.
20 August 2009 - Mr White was a director of PFS Business Development Group, a company that set up self-managed superannuation funds for its clients. He was sentenced to four years and two months jail with a non parole period of two and a half years in the Victorian County Court on 12 charges. Mr White stole $428,000 from self-managed superannuation funds to support his business and for living expenses that included the renting of a Southbank apartment.
Video classics - the Murdoch Muzzle
Two Mayne Report videos are going to be included in a forthcoming exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image inside Melbourne's Federation Square. We've been pondering which to offer up and for all those relatively new readers of this newsletter, our favourite four are at the top of our video site. Don't miss the video called Murdoch Muzzle - as it deals with the most outrageous dodging of question time we've even seen at an AGM.
Press Room and podcasts
Below are this weeks contributions:
ABC News Radio: discussing the ASX being stripped of its regulatory powers
774 ABC Melbourne - discussing emissions trading, state of the economy and James Hardie.
702 ABC Sydney - with Richard Glover discussing the James Hardie fines.
Crikey story on Rupert's spinner Greg Baxter and his James Hardie legacy.
Click the link to get the latest radio and AGM audio via itunes so you can listen on your ipod or iphone on the go.
If you missed watching the video of the IQ debate on the topic "The media cannot be trusted to tell the truth", you can listen here or get the podcast.
Fighting the pokies with differential rates
Assistant Treasurer Nick Sherry has come up with a dramatic proposal to make the ATO the only tax collecting body for the entire country. Sherry actually wants Canberra to collect rates for local councils.
This all sounds well and good, but councils aren't even mentioned in the Australian constitution. How about a bit of constitutional recognition before us councillors hand over the taxing power? Besides, councils are creatures of state legislation so if anything we should be handing over the taxing power to the states.
Can you imagine what the ATO would say if a range of Victorian councils decided to follow the lead of Moreland in Melbourne's northern suburbs and impose double rates on commercial pokies venues?
Under the Victorian Local Government Act, councils can rate any particular group up to four times what the group with the biggest rate concessions are paying. Our area of Manningham has close to the highest concentration of Woolworths pokies of any metropolitan council and we are currently reviewing our gambling policy.
Handing collections over to the ATO would suggest a once-size-fits-all approach that would limit such policy flexibility for councils, but we should listen to the arguments before leaping to conclusions.
I was in Sydney speaking at an economic conference last week and Ken Henry gave a very impressive presentation on the need for tax reform. He said state taxes were definitely in the frame, which immediately raises the prospect that the unhealthy state reliance on gambling taxes might finally be tackled in the Henry review.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd reckons he hates the pokies and claims to be seeking advice from Tim Costello on how to tackle them. So far he has done precisely nothing on both fronts, although the ACT ALP branch is flogging its pokies clubs for $20 million to its richest affliated union, the CFMEU.
Classic Cornwall
$100 million loss club - biggest to smallest
A record 29 ASX-listed companies reported losses of more than $100 million in 2007-08, but the figure might finish up above 50 in 2008-09 as we see unprecedented amounts of red ink flow courtesy of the global financial crisis. We've found more than 75 companies that have achieved that milestone more than 150 times over the past 20 years, including close to 20 so far this reporting season. Here's a chronological version and a biggest to smallest version of how all the losses above $100 million rolled out.
The final day of the reporting season next Monday will also be a doozy if we get a repeat of what happened on February 27 when the flood of last day losses poured out as we explained in this chronological list at the time. There's never been a flood of red ink quite like that before.
Check out these Mayne Reports editions from February where we reported on huge asset write-downs and flowing red ink:
China bids everywhere, huge write-downs, pokies, Nylex, Rupert, CBA rip-offs and much more
February 16, 2009
Record week for red ink, Wesfarmers opportunity, Chinalco polling, farm sell-off, CSR baggage, capital raising losses, Babcock insult, Rich List and Packer probity issue
February 23, 2009
Is Wesfarmers quitting the pokies business?
Paul Bendat, the man behind PokieAct.org, appears to be getting some traction in his campaign against Wesfarmers after The AFR's Street Talk column today revealed the conglomerate had appointed Macquarie to help advise on the sale of some pubs.
Bendat has been campaigning hard against Woolworths and Coles. Whilst Woolies is easily the biggest player with 12,000 pokies, it is showing no signs of backing off after recently buying more pubs. A coming board tilt and S249P statement to all its 300,000-plus shareholders at the forthcoming AGM will be an interesting test of their resolve.
Wesfarmers is the smaller player with about 3000 pokies but it appears to be going into reverse under the leadership of CEO Richard Goyder. Bendat took out confrontational full page ads in Goyder's local paper covering leafy Peppermint Grove in Perth two months ago. Maybe the Wesfarmers boss hasn't enjoyed the blowtorch being applied so close to home about the damage his company does, particularly in Queensland.
There's also talk that Nick Xenophon is firing up for an appearance at either the Woolies or Coles AGM in November.
Shock, horror – institution calls meeting to remove directors
Institutional apathy has long been a woeful feature of the Australian capital markets, so it is good to see listed fund CVC step up to the plate and seek to remove some of the directors of Amadeus Energy for proposing a highly dilutive and selective capital raising which shafts the existing shareholders. Amadeus didn't even propose an SPP to placate its retail shareholders. Check out the arguments from both sides here.
REA Group comes through with a dividend
After teaming up with www.realestate.com.au co-founder Karl Sabljak at last year's AGM, we got a result when the company announced a maiden dividend last week. Karl emailed through the following:
Dear Stephen,
I would like to think that the earbashing at last year's REA AGM must have finally galvanised the board into approving the maiden dividend. However it is probably more likely that REA's dividend announcement was a bit of a sweetener for what appeared to be a very disappointing profit result.
Thanks again for putting on the pressure.
Cheers, Karl Sabljak
Have a listen to that dividend exchange and all the action from last year's REA Group AGM:
REA Group November 25, 2008
- listen to audio, see Mayne report
The Mayne Report Rich List
Since we began compiling the Mayne Report Rich List documenting every Australian currently or previously worth more then $10 million, it has grown in numbers and popularity such that no other feature on our website can match it for traffic.
We're now up to 1375 entries, although some are italicised, denoting that they are no longer worth more than our $10 million cut off. Send us through any tips or suggestions of anyone you think deserves a spot on the list. The dramatic Woolworths move into hardware has today created the following new entry:
Danks family: owns 3.17 million shares in Danks Holdings Limited a leading hardware distributor in Australia in charge of the retail brands Home Timber & Hardware, Thrifty Link Hardware and Plants Plus Garden Centres, will reap nearly $43 million from the takeover by
a joint venture entity which is 66 per cent owned by Woolworths.
AGM diary for 2009 season
Retail shareholders have long put up with unnecessary clashes of AGMs so in 2009 we're going to try and manage the process by offering a bidding system for scheduling with each day broken up into three available slots as you can see here. We have researched announcements and contacted companies who have yet to confirm dates. There are still plenty of times available and below are some dates already clogged with multiple AGMs:
Friday, October 23
Asciano, 11am, The Sofitel, Melbourne
Karoon Gas, Crown in Melbourne at 11am
Paperlinx likely to clash in Melbourne
Hills Industries in Adelaide
Wednesday, October 28
Macquarie Media, 11am, Sydney, venue to be determined
Billabong on Gold Coast
Boral and Dexus - likely morning clash in Sydney
Crown, 11am, River Room, Crown Casino
Thursday, October 29
Toll Holdings morning in Melbourne
Newcrest Mining 10.30am Melbourne
GWA International - Brisbane
AGL 10.30am City Recital Hall, Angel Place, Sydney
BHP-Billiton starting 10am London time
Friday, October 30
Origin Energy, 10.30am, Wesley Centre, Sydney
Healthscope - morning start in Melbourne
Felix resources
Tatts Group
Thursday, November 19
Mirvac, 10am, Sebel Pier One, The Rocks, Sydney
Goodman Fielder - Melbourne
AWE - Sydney
Brambles, Melbourne
St Barbara Mines, Melbourne
Thursday, November 26
Village Roadshaow 9:30am Roxy Cinema¸Warner Bros. Movie World, Queensland
BHP Billiton AGM, 10.30am start in Brisbane
Woolworths, Sydney morning start at Darling Harbour
Beach Petroleum, Adelaide
Linc Energy, 3pm at the Mecure in Brisbane
Flexigroup, 4pm at the Sofitel Wentworth in Sydney.
Friday, November 27
FKP - Brisbane morning start
Centenial Coal - Sydney morning start
Duet Group - Sydney
IOOF Holdings - Melbourne
The following companies have yet to announce to shareholders the upcoming dates for their AGMs and are of interest to us so let us know if you have any insights:
Aquila Resources, Argo, Becton, Ceramic Fuels, Charter Hall, Challenger Financial, Cochlear, David Jones, Devine, DKN
Elders, Energy World, Flight Centre, Globe, Goodman Group, Harvey Norman, HFA, IMF, JB Hi-Fi, Leisure and Living, Mt Gibson Iron, Photon Group, Platinum Asset Management, Premier Investments, Q Ltd, REA Group, Reece Australia, RHG Home Loans, Riversdale Mining, Seek, Spotless, Seven Network, Sonic Healthcare, Sunland, Treasury Group, Trinity, WA News, Washington Soul Pattinson
Classic Cornwall
Tales from the talk circuit
The talk circuit continues to keep us busy with an appearance in Sydney last Wednesday at the Inaugural Australian Economic Forum.
The one hour panel assessed the fallout from the global financial crisis and I had 10 minutes to assess the implications for shareholders. The session was chaired by Michael Stutchbury from The Australian, and the other speakers were Westpac chief economist Bill Evans and APRA chairman Dr John Laker.
The APRA boss is certainly worth his $600,000 annual salary and gave a very fine presentation. I gave the bank cartel heaps for gouging Australians with the world's most expensive banking system and building up a massive conflict of interest with this continuing move into funds management.
Laker expressly said that his job wasn't to protect shareholders but rather depositors. However, he confided afterwards that a couple of people had raised the issue with him of whether it was healthy to have banks as four of Australia's five most valuable listed companies - something I pointed out in this recent piece for Fairfax.
Finally, go here for feedback after some of our speeches.
Capital raising plays continue to deliver
The total gross profits for the year have now just cracked $200,000, as you can see here.
A massive 65% scale back from Asciano, where we put $30,000 into three $10,000 SPP entitlements at $1.10, delivered a profit of $3626, which pushes our August profits above $10,000. This is the monthly breakdown but with the big NAB scale back, we won't get above $15,000 for August, although September is already looking quite hopeful with Goodman Group, Structural Systems, Australand, Bendigo Bank, Bank of Queensland, Spotless, Skilled Engineering and others currently well in the money:
January: broke even
February: broke even
March: $10,170 profit
April: $36,996 profit
May: $31,639 profit
June: $86,600 profit
July: $28,293 profit
August: $10,258 so far
Offers we're currently committed to
Australand: maximum $40,000 into 40c entitlement offer. Closed August 21 and trades September 2.
CBH Resources: $15,000 SPP at 10c which closed on July 31 and trades September 1 after EGM.
National Australia Bank: $38,000 into three $15,000 SPPs at $21.50 but will only get $8400 worth. Trades on August 31.
Virgin Blue: $23,000 so far into 20c offer with unlimited ability to apply for extras and closes on August 28.
Whitehaven Coal: $2000 so far into $15,000 SPP at $3.05 which closes August 31 and trades September 7.
Total live applications: $118,000
Waiting for $19,500 refund from Asciano and $29,600 back from NAB
The list of upcoming offers we're considering can be found here.
Mayne Report RSS Feeds
The Mayne Report now has RSS feeds for you. We have bundled our best articles into a simple and easy delivery for you. Add an RSS feed to your personal reader, iGoogle, MyYahoo, or blog. It's quick and easy to do and means you're always up to date with the latest Mayne Report activity.
More Cornwall cartoons for The Mayne Report
Former Fairfax and Crikey cartoonist Mark Cornwall has been contributing his satirical commentary to the Mayne Report since March 2009. Here is a collection of his best cartoons and there are now some amusing animations he has begun. Go here to see his animations and below are some new offerings:
Latest trades
Check out the full portfolio as of August 7, 2009 and below are the most recent trades:
August 24
Goodman Fielder: bought 350 at $1.44
MEC Resources: bought 1,191 at 42c
Ramsay Health Care: bought 46 at $11.02
August 21
Asciano: sold 3,281 at $1.50
Asciano: sold 3,547 at $1.46
Macquarie Leisure: sold 3,547 at $1.46 and 3,281 at $1.50
August 14
Brambles: sold 72 at $6.78
Innmincka Petroleum: sold 71,000 at 22c
ROC Oil: sold 21,052 at 77c
August 13
Macquarie Leisure: sold 531 at $1.51
August 10
Macquarie Leisure: sold 1,527 at $1.42
That's all for now.
Do ya best, Stephen Mayne
* The Mayne Report is a multi-media governance website published by Stephen Mayne with occasional email editions. To unsubscribe from the emails click here.
I'm meant to be preparing for a public council meeting tonight whilst also battling the dreaded winter lurgy, but the National Australia Bank has so enraged its small shareholders that I'm instead out of the sick bed with this missive for your attention.
NAB's staggering mistreatment of small shareholders
NAB has today produced one of the biggest shaftings of retail investors in history when it refused to expand the arbitrary cap of $750 million for its current share purchase plan, even after being deluged with a record $2.6 billion worth of applications. Check out the announcement here.
Investors will all be scaled back to just 28.8% of their application and with the shares today up 64c to $27.32, the decision has collectively cost retail investors more than $500 million, although the stock would have weakened today if all $2.6 billion had been accepted.
That said, NAB's institutional investors are today rolling in extra profits because the 93 million shares they were selectively placed at $21.50 on July 31 are now showing a paper profit of $541 million.
Whilst retail investors represent about 40% of NAB's share register, they will only be issued 27% of the new shares in this current capital raising and the paper profit on the 34.88 million shares that will be issued to retail investors on Friday is today only $203 million.
What makes the NAB situation even worse is that it did a $3 billion institutional placement at $20 a share late last year and then only raised $250 million from retail investors in the follow-up SPP.
If NAB needed more capital, it should have only proceeded with another SPP. Instead, it did not another $2 billion institutional placement to the big end of town and wouldn't even guarantee retail investors their pro-rata share.
These retail rip-offs are getting out of hand. The NAB AGM is in December and the directors are clearly asking for someone to run for the board on a platform to represent retail investors.
Faced with a similar situation last month, ANZ threw out its $350 million arbitrary cap and accepted all $2.2 billion worth of applications.
The contrast with NAB is stark indeed and makes our most recent Fairfax column - Why the banks are always b*stards - even more relevent.
ASIC to take over some ASX regulatory functions
The arrogant big banks would do well to take note that dominant monopolies aren't doing too well with the Rudd Government. Sol Trujillo and Donald McGauchie were quickly out the door after the government called Telstra'a bluff on broadband and now the ASX has been largely stripped of its supervisory powers in a major win for ASIC.
The Chris Bowen announcement and ASX response were suitably measured but make no mistake, this is a very big call which will weaken the ASX monopoly.
New ASX chairman David Gonski has been doing a much better job on supervision than his predecessor Maurice Newman, but the damage was already done as was partly explained during this interview on ABC NewsRadio this morning.
Besides, there was an inherent logic about stripping ASX of its supervisory powers with the advent of competition, which might finally arrive some time in the next five years.
The expanded ASIC Jail List
Is ASIC an effective corporate cop that should be trusted with greater market supervision? You be the judge as this is the list of 347 people the plod has sent to jail since it was established in January 1991.
ASIC averages about 22 jailings a year but most of them are relative unknowns as the big fish largely escape with their liberty. Anyway, here are the latest entries on our mega white collar jail list but they certainly aren't what you'd call household names:
10 July 2009 - Mr Sonatane Hafoka of Shalvey, NSW, was sentenced to 6 months imprisonment, but was immediately suspended upon Mr Hafoka entering into a four year good behaviour bond and paying an amount of $1,000. On 10 March 2009, Mr Hafoka pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting Mr Atan Kassongo, of Castle Hill, NSW, to unlawfully allow the early access of superannuation benefits.
20 August 2009 - Mr White was a director of PFS Business Development Group, a company that set up self-managed superannuation funds for its clients. He was sentenced to four years and two months jail with a non parole period of two and a half years in the Victorian County Court on 12 charges. Mr White stole $428,000 from self-managed superannuation funds to support his business and for living expenses that included the renting of a Southbank apartment.
Video classics - the Murdoch Muzzle
Two Mayne Report videos are going to be included in a forthcoming exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image inside Melbourne's Federation Square. We've been pondering which to offer up and for all those relatively new readers of this newsletter, our favourite four are at the top of our video site. Don't miss the video called Murdoch Muzzle - as it deals with the most outrageous dodging of question time we've even seen at an AGM.
Press Room and podcasts
Below are this weeks contributions:
ABC News Radio: discussing the ASX being stripped of its regulatory powers
774 ABC Melbourne - discussing emissions trading, state of the economy and James Hardie.
702 ABC Sydney - with Richard Glover discussing the James Hardie fines.
Crikey story on Rupert's spinner Greg Baxter and his James Hardie legacy.
Click the link to get the latest radio and AGM audio via itunes so you can listen on your ipod or iphone on the go.
If you missed watching the video of the IQ debate on the topic "The media cannot be trusted to tell the truth", you can listen here or get the podcast.
Fighting the pokies with differential rates
Assistant Treasurer Nick Sherry has come up with a dramatic proposal to make the ATO the only tax collecting body for the entire country. Sherry actually wants Canberra to collect rates for local councils.
This all sounds well and good, but councils aren't even mentioned in the Australian constitution. How about a bit of constitutional recognition before us councillors hand over the taxing power? Besides, councils are creatures of state legislation so if anything we should be handing over the taxing power to the states.
Can you imagine what the ATO would say if a range of Victorian councils decided to follow the lead of Moreland in Melbourne's northern suburbs and impose double rates on commercial pokies venues?
Under the Victorian Local Government Act, councils can rate any particular group up to four times what the group with the biggest rate concessions are paying. Our area of Manningham has close to the highest concentration of Woolworths pokies of any metropolitan council and we are currently reviewing our gambling policy.
Handing collections over to the ATO would suggest a once-size-fits-all approach that would limit such policy flexibility for councils, but we should listen to the arguments before leaping to conclusions.
I was in Sydney speaking at an economic conference last week and Ken Henry gave a very impressive presentation on the need for tax reform. He said state taxes were definitely in the frame, which immediately raises the prospect that the unhealthy state reliance on gambling taxes might finally be tackled in the Henry review.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd reckons he hates the pokies and claims to be seeking advice from Tim Costello on how to tackle them. So far he has done precisely nothing on both fronts, although the ACT ALP branch is flogging its pokies clubs for $20 million to its richest affliated union, the CFMEU.
Classic Cornwall
$100 million loss club - biggest to smallest
A record 29 ASX-listed companies reported losses of more than $100 million in 2007-08, but the figure might finish up above 50 in 2008-09 as we see unprecedented amounts of red ink flow courtesy of the global financial crisis. We've found more than 75 companies that have achieved that milestone more than 150 times over the past 20 years, including close to 20 so far this reporting season. Here's a chronological version and a biggest to smallest version of how all the losses above $100 million rolled out.
The final day of the reporting season next Monday will also be a doozy if we get a repeat of what happened on February 27 when the flood of last day losses poured out as we explained in this chronological list at the time. There's never been a flood of red ink quite like that before.
Check out these Mayne Reports editions from February where we reported on huge asset write-downs and flowing red ink:
China bids everywhere, huge write-downs, pokies, Nylex, Rupert, CBA rip-offs and much more
February 16, 2009
Record week for red ink, Wesfarmers opportunity, Chinalco polling, farm sell-off, CSR baggage, capital raising losses, Babcock insult, Rich List and Packer probity issue
February 23, 2009
Is Wesfarmers quitting the pokies business?
Paul Bendat, the man behind PokieAct.org, appears to be getting some traction in his campaign against Wesfarmers after The AFR's Street Talk column today revealed the conglomerate had appointed Macquarie to help advise on the sale of some pubs.
Bendat has been campaigning hard against Woolworths and Coles. Whilst Woolies is easily the biggest player with 12,000 pokies, it is showing no signs of backing off after recently buying more pubs. A coming board tilt and S249P statement to all its 300,000-plus shareholders at the forthcoming AGM will be an interesting test of their resolve.
Wesfarmers is the smaller player with about 3000 pokies but it appears to be going into reverse under the leadership of CEO Richard Goyder. Bendat took out confrontational full page ads in Goyder's local paper covering leafy Peppermint Grove in Perth two months ago. Maybe the Wesfarmers boss hasn't enjoyed the blowtorch being applied so close to home about the damage his company does, particularly in Queensland.
There's also talk that Nick Xenophon is firing up for an appearance at either the Woolies or Coles AGM in November.
Shock, horror – institution calls meeting to remove directors
Institutional apathy has long been a woeful feature of the Australian capital markets, so it is good to see listed fund CVC step up to the plate and seek to remove some of the directors of Amadeus Energy for proposing a highly dilutive and selective capital raising which shafts the existing shareholders. Amadeus didn't even propose an SPP to placate its retail shareholders. Check out the arguments from both sides here.
REA Group comes through with a dividend
After teaming up with www.realestate.com.au co-founder Karl Sabljak at last year's AGM, we got a result when the company announced a maiden dividend last week. Karl emailed through the following:
Dear Stephen,
I would like to think that the earbashing at last year's REA AGM must have finally galvanised the board into approving the maiden dividend. However it is probably more likely that REA's dividend announcement was a bit of a sweetener for what appeared to be a very disappointing profit result.
Thanks again for putting on the pressure.
Cheers, Karl Sabljak
Have a listen to that dividend exchange and all the action from last year's REA Group AGM:
REA Group November 25, 2008
- listen to audio, see Mayne report
The Mayne Report Rich List
Since we began compiling the Mayne Report Rich List documenting every Australian currently or previously worth more then $10 million, it has grown in numbers and popularity such that no other feature on our website can match it for traffic.
We're now up to 1375 entries, although some are italicised, denoting that they are no longer worth more than our $10 million cut off. Send us through any tips or suggestions of anyone you think deserves a spot on the list. The dramatic Woolworths move into hardware has today created the following new entry:
Danks family: owns 3.17 million shares in Danks Holdings Limited a leading hardware distributor in Australia in charge of the retail brands Home Timber & Hardware, Thrifty Link Hardware and Plants Plus Garden Centres, will reap nearly $43 million from the takeover by
a joint venture entity which is 66 per cent owned by Woolworths.
AGM diary for 2009 season
Retail shareholders have long put up with unnecessary clashes of AGMs so in 2009 we're going to try and manage the process by offering a bidding system for scheduling with each day broken up into three available slots as you can see here. We have researched announcements and contacted companies who have yet to confirm dates. There are still plenty of times available and below are some dates already clogged with multiple AGMs:
Friday, October 23
Asciano, 11am, The Sofitel, Melbourne
Karoon Gas, Crown in Melbourne at 11am
Paperlinx likely to clash in Melbourne
Hills Industries in Adelaide
Wednesday, October 28
Macquarie Media, 11am, Sydney, venue to be determined
Billabong on Gold Coast
Boral and Dexus - likely morning clash in Sydney
Crown, 11am, River Room, Crown Casino
Thursday, October 29
Toll Holdings morning in Melbourne
Newcrest Mining 10.30am Melbourne
GWA International - Brisbane
AGL 10.30am City Recital Hall, Angel Place, Sydney
BHP-Billiton starting 10am London time
Friday, October 30
Origin Energy, 10.30am, Wesley Centre, Sydney
Healthscope - morning start in Melbourne
Felix resources
Tatts Group
Thursday, November 19
Mirvac, 10am, Sebel Pier One, The Rocks, Sydney
Goodman Fielder - Melbourne
AWE - Sydney
Brambles, Melbourne
St Barbara Mines, Melbourne
Thursday, November 26
Village Roadshaow 9:30am Roxy Cinema¸Warner Bros. Movie World, Queensland
BHP Billiton AGM, 10.30am start in Brisbane
Woolworths, Sydney morning start at Darling Harbour
Beach Petroleum, Adelaide
Linc Energy, 3pm at the Mecure in Brisbane
Flexigroup, 4pm at the Sofitel Wentworth in Sydney.
Friday, November 27
FKP - Brisbane morning start
Centenial Coal - Sydney morning start
Duet Group - Sydney
IOOF Holdings - Melbourne
The following companies have yet to announce to shareholders the upcoming dates for their AGMs and are of interest to us so let us know if you have any insights:
Aquila Resources, Argo, Becton, Ceramic Fuels, Charter Hall, Challenger Financial, Cochlear, David Jones, Devine, DKN
Elders, Energy World, Flight Centre, Globe, Goodman Group, Harvey Norman, HFA, IMF, JB Hi-Fi, Leisure and Living, Mt Gibson Iron, Photon Group, Platinum Asset Management, Premier Investments, Q Ltd, REA Group, Reece Australia, RHG Home Loans, Riversdale Mining, Seek, Spotless, Seven Network, Sonic Healthcare, Sunland, Treasury Group, Trinity, WA News, Washington Soul Pattinson
Classic Cornwall
Tales from the talk circuit
The talk circuit continues to keep us busy with an appearance in Sydney last Wednesday at the Inaugural Australian Economic Forum.
The one hour panel assessed the fallout from the global financial crisis and I had 10 minutes to assess the implications for shareholders. The session was chaired by Michael Stutchbury from The Australian, and the other speakers were Westpac chief economist Bill Evans and APRA chairman Dr John Laker.
The APRA boss is certainly worth his $600,000 annual salary and gave a very fine presentation. I gave the bank cartel heaps for gouging Australians with the world's most expensive banking system and building up a massive conflict of interest with this continuing move into funds management.
Laker expressly said that his job wasn't to protect shareholders but rather depositors. However, he confided afterwards that a couple of people had raised the issue with him of whether it was healthy to have banks as four of Australia's five most valuable listed companies - something I pointed out in this recent piece for Fairfax.
Finally, go here for feedback after some of our speeches.
Capital raising plays continue to deliver
The total gross profits for the year have now just cracked $200,000, as you can see here.
A massive 65% scale back from Asciano, where we put $30,000 into three $10,000 SPP entitlements at $1.10, delivered a profit of $3626, which pushes our August profits above $10,000. This is the monthly breakdown but with the big NAB scale back, we won't get above $15,000 for August, although September is already looking quite hopeful with Goodman Group, Structural Systems, Australand, Bendigo Bank, Bank of Queensland, Spotless, Skilled Engineering and others currently well in the money:
January: broke even
February: broke even
March: $10,170 profit
April: $36,996 profit
May: $31,639 profit
June: $86,600 profit
July: $28,293 profit
August: $10,258 so far
Offers we're currently committed to
Australand: maximum $40,000 into 40c entitlement offer. Closed August 21 and trades September 2.
CBH Resources: $15,000 SPP at 10c which closed on July 31 and trades September 1 after EGM.
National Australia Bank: $38,000 into three $15,000 SPPs at $21.50 but will only get $8400 worth. Trades on August 31.
Virgin Blue: $23,000 so far into 20c offer with unlimited ability to apply for extras and closes on August 28.
Whitehaven Coal: $2000 so far into $15,000 SPP at $3.05 which closes August 31 and trades September 7.
Total live applications: $118,000
Waiting for $19,500 refund from Asciano and $29,600 back from NAB
The list of upcoming offers we're considering can be found here.
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More Cornwall cartoons for The Mayne Report
Former Fairfax and Crikey cartoonist Mark Cornwall has been contributing his satirical commentary to the Mayne Report since March 2009. Here is a collection of his best cartoons and there are now some amusing animations he has begun. Go here to see his animations and below are some new offerings:
Latest trades
Check out the full portfolio as of August 7, 2009 and below are the most recent trades:
August 24
Goodman Fielder: bought 350 at $1.44
MEC Resources: bought 1,191 at 42c
Ramsay Health Care: bought 46 at $11.02
August 21
Asciano: sold 3,281 at $1.50
Asciano: sold 3,547 at $1.46
Macquarie Leisure: sold 3,547 at $1.46 and 3,281 at $1.50
August 14
Brambles: sold 72 at $6.78
Innmincka Petroleum: sold 71,000 at 22c
ROC Oil: sold 21,052 at 77c
August 13
Macquarie Leisure: sold 531 at $1.51
August 10
Macquarie Leisure: sold 1,527 at $1.42
That's all for now.
Do ya best, Stephen Mayne
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