QLD ALP's frozen millions, Bolton, Stokes, Alinta, pokies, Manningham, Rich List, $100m losses, female directors, privatisation and much more
June 21, 2010
Dear Readers,
enjoy this lively edition of The Mayne Report which covers everything from campaign finance to corporate governance, local politics, Kerry Stokes, the Rich List, privatisation, capital raisings, our recent share dealings and much more.
Revealed: Queensland Labor's $2m frozen investment
For all you students and participants in Australia's political campaign finance system, this little tale will be of interest. If you look at the 2008-09 AEC return filed by Labor Holdings, the investment arm of the Queensland ALP, you'll see $174,666 in income from the Trinity Property Trust.
Similarly, if you look at the 2008-09 annual report of Trinity Property Trust you'll see that the fund has been frozen since June 2009 with no withdrawals allowed. Trinity is not alone, as this list tracking more than $20 billion in frozen funds suggests.
The Trinity Property Trust paid a distribution of 6.04c for the 2008-09 year and 10.52c in 2007-08 as you can see on page 4 of the annual report.
Given that the fund pays distributions each February and August, it appears Queensland Labor has about $2 million tied up in the frozen fund which has seen its value crash by 30% over the past two years. Going into a Federal election year that's a fair whack to be frozen given that the net assets of Labor Holdings are said to have fallen below $30 million for the first time in years.
The $500 million Trinity fund declared a loss of almost $100 million in 2008-09 and the latest December half year shows the red ink continues to flow. This hasn't stopped the manager, teetering listed company Trinity Group, from helping itself to almost $3 million in fees for the December half.
Trinity Group shares have plunged from $3 in mid-2007 to just 10c after it was caught with too much debt during the GFC and was then engulfed by a Labor mates lobbying scandal after former Labor staffer Ross Daley was paid a $1 million success fee by Trinity for luring $100 million from SunSuper into the Trinity Property Trust.
SunSuper is Queensland's biggest industry fund with $14 billion under management and a board which is a 50-50 split between union and employer group representatives.
It has an unusual structure in that the board also comprises the investment committee. The longest serving SunSuper director is union strongman and Queensland factional kingmaker Bill Ludwig, who was first appointed way back in 1988.
Bill Ludwig's son is Senator Joe Ludwig, the Rudd Government minister responsible for Australia's weak campaign finance disclosure laws. Big Bill recently told The Australian's Natasha Bita that the finances of Labor Holdings were "none of your business".
This sort of attitude was slammed in Crikey and there clearly ought to be more revealed about Labor's governance systems and party finances in Queensland. Similarly, SunSuper's $100 million investment in Trinity raises exactly the sort of governance questions covered in this comment piece about industry funds run by Fairfax's Money section last November.
After all, at the time SunSuper made its $100 million investment, Trinity was chaired by former Queensland Labor Treasurer Keith de Lacy, whose claims at the 2008 Trinity AGM now look quite hilarious. SunSuper members have so far lost an estimated $30 million on the ill-timed Trinity investment.
The Australian has led the way on this story and here are some relevent links:
SunSuper's $100m Trinity investment frozen
Sacked lobbyist to keep $1m success fee
However, despite a number of emails it wasn't possible to get The Australian interested in the story of the Queensland ALP having about $2 million frozen in the Trinity Property Trust.
Meanwhile, the Victorian Liberals continue to show the Labor Bruvvas how party funds should be invested. This latest stockmarket spurt shows the Cormack Foundation is now up to a share portfolio worth more than $61 million with Wesfarmers, BHP and Rio Tinto the biggest contributors, according to our modelling of their portfolio based on this 2008-09 return to the AEC.
Dramatic drop in $100m losses declared
As was noted in our edition on March 3 last year, a record 57 ASX-listed companies reported losses of more than $100 million for the half year ended December 31, 2008. Never before has the red ink flowed quite like February 2009. Last August was almost as bad when 52 companies reported losses exceeding $100 million for the period ended June 30, 2009.
Since the All Ords bottomed at 3145 on March 9 last year, the stockmarket has recovered about 50% and the red ink is no longer flowing. However, we still did have 9 companies join the $100 million loss club last month and they were mainly property plays or teetering former Babcock vehicles. From biggest to smallest we hereby present the latest names to join the $100 million loss club during the February 2010 reporting season:
GPT Group: the property group announced a $1.07 billion loss for 2009 after more heavy write-downs but this was an improvement on the $3.25 billion loss in 2008.
Prime Infrastructure: after over-paying for infrastructure assets all over the world, the write-downs kept coming for the old Babcock & Brown Infrastructure which produced a net loss of $731.8 million for the six months to December 31, 2009.
MAP Group: the old Macquarie Airports managed a net loss of $572.7 million for the December 2009 half year but this was largely due to accounting quirks and the $345 million divorce settlement with the Millionaires Factory rather than any major operational problems within the portfolio.
Goodman Group: the debt-laden industrial property giant raised a stack of capital to save itself in 2009 but heavy write-downs produced a net loss of $482.9 million for the half year to December 2009.
Westfield: $3.5 billion in write-downs, largely related to US and UK investments, delivered a bottom line loss of $458 million for calendar year 2009.
Australand: following a profit of $40 million in 2008, the Singapore-controlled property group announced a $298 million loss for 2009 courtesy of write-downs.
Alinta Energy: the old Babcock & Brown Power suffered further write-downs to produce a net loss of $260.9 million for the half year to December 31, 2009.
Paperlinx: plunged to a net loss of $175.3 million for the December 2009 half year largely due to ongoing red ink from its Australian Paper operations before they were sold to Nippon Paper.
Valad Property Group: the struggling property group copped more write-downs to produce a net loss of $103.6 million for the half year to December 31, 2009.
Check out this full list of $100m losses by financial year and look at where these losses sit in the all-time list tracking $100 million losses from biggest to smallest. Also, listen to this recent discussion about the $100 million loss club with Lindy Burns on 774 ABC Melbourne.
Lend Lease joins the $1 billion capital raising club
The frenzy of capital raisings in 2009 have now dramatically subsided although Lend Lease came back for a second bite this month and will become the 25th company to have raised more than $1 billion in fresh equity since the beginning of 2008.
Lend Lease is doing the right thing with a 5-for-22 entitlement offer at $7.70 which doesn't allow for anyone to apply for extras and generates a premium for non-participants through one book build.
It is certainly better than the selective $302 millon placement at $6.05 the company did back in February 2009 when the accompanying share purchase plan was actually abandoned because the stock subsequently tanked to near $5 when the All Ords was bottoming in early March.
Fast forward 12 months and those institutions which supported the placement have had a good ride and now everyone is being asked to participate on equal terms this time.
Check out our master list tracking all the major capital raisings since the beginning of 2008. We'll never see anything like it again.
Kerry Stokes makes our ten Engin shares disappear
Whilst 25 companies have raised more than $1 billion in fresh equity from investors over the past two years there are plenty of other examples of value being permanently destroyed in the world's biggest small share portfolio.
Indeed, former billionaire Kerry Stokes has come up with a unique method of vaporising my 10 shares in Engin, a struggling internet company 58% owned by his listed Seven Network Ltd.
The letter from the Engin share registry provider late last year included the following advice:
At the General Meeting of shareholders held on 16 November 2009 a resolution was passed to consolidate the shares in the company on a 1 for 50 basis. Accordingly you have now been issued with 1 share for every 50 shares previously held as shown below.
Previous holding: 10
Number of shares now held: 0
Not even a "thank you and good night" sentiment. You'd think there might be some sort of rounding up provision in such an exercise. I've been wiped off the register with no compensation. Engin last traded at 65c, suggesting my 10 shares would have been worth 13c had this punitive action not been taken.
Having already dropped $400 getting onto the Engin share register, I'll have to outlay another $500 in order to annoy the likes of Ryan Stokes and Bruce McWilliam at the next AGM, if the company lasts that long.
Tattersall's deal a rare Australian privatisation play
The 1990s was the decade of privatisation in Australia. Victoria's Kennett Government flogged almost $40 billion worth of assets, most state banks and insurance offices were disposed of, Paul Keating blazed the trail with Qantas, CSL and the Commonwealth Bank and then John Howard followed through with Telstra and all major Australian airports.
Whilst Tony Abbott has announced plans to sell Medibank Private, there has been very few privatisation deals over the past two years so it was a rare moment indeed last week when Tattersall's was declared the buyer of an exclusive 40 year lottery licence in NSW for $850 million.
The Mayne Report is Australia's only publication to comprehensively track privatisations over the past 20 years and you can check out our full updated list of more than 80 deals here.
With the NSW Government seemingly abandoning promised power privatisation deals, the next big offer is likely to be from the Queensland Government which is ploughing ahead with a November float of Queensland Rail, despite strong public, industry and union opposition.
Whilst it is still early days, the Queensland Government seems to have recklessly ruled out a trade sale of part of Queensland Rail to the big coal industry players even though that would probably produce a much bigger price than a public float.
There is a long and sorry history of Australian governments preferring floats over trade sales for political and industrial reasons, thereby ultimately costing taxpayers billions in missed sale proceeds.
Being from a Labor Government, Premier Anna Bligh and Treasurer Andrew Fraser are clearly pushing the envelope pursuing any form of sale, so the float will no doubt delay serious efficiency gains until well after the event in an effort to placate union anger.
Swick Mining joins the placement shame file
You can usually rely on Perth-based companies to take the governance low road. The latest offender is Swick Mining Services which announced a $17.5 million placement at 40c a share last week. The deal exceeded the 15% annual limit and involved participation by directors, yet there is no sign of a share purchase plan for retail investors on comparable terms. These turkeys clearly should have done a pro-rata offer that treated everyone equally.
This sort of thing happens less frequently these days but there are still plenty of well-known names on our shame file tracking the placement club which fails to look after retail investors.
Introducing Nicholas Bolton to Richard Colless
ING's pokies-focused listed Real Estate Entertainment Fund held an information meeting in Sydney on February 22 and we gave you a lively written account of proceedings in the February 23 edition.
The ING stable of listed funds are all chaired by Sydney Swans President Richard Colless and they have been an absolute dog with billions lost courtesy of excessive debt and ill-disciplined buying sprees at the top of the market.
Throw in some apparently related deals involving ING pokies venues and The Swans and it made for quite a heady mix as these edited audio files attest:
What accountability has been shown for all these losses? Tell us more about the deal with the Penrith Panthers
How did you handle these Club Swans deals involving the chairman?
Can the manager be sacked and do these deferred fees serve as a poison pill?
Have you thought about raising equity and who are our lenders?
Take us through the pokies environment with Productivity Commission report looming
The Age's business gossip columnist Mark Hawthorne covered the meeting from Melbourne but wasn't interested in the pokies debate, instead just noting that greenmailer Nicholas Bolton was a silent observer of proceedings.
It was amusing introducing Bolton to Colless after the meeting and then later spending an hour with the likely lad over coffee at the Hilton. He was quite impressive.
Questioning the old Babcock & Brown Power directors
Alinta Energy, the rebadged Babcock & Brown Power, held an EGM in Sydney on February 22 to approve an effective $300 million hair-cut for the old parent company.
It was certainly a very odd deal with Babcock & Brown's bankers agreeing to surrender a $453 million liability in exchange for cash, shares and a power station asset worth barely $100 million.
The AFR's Street Talk column had another interesting item yesterday suggesting Alinta Energy's debts remain well in excess of its assets, which backs up one of my criticisms at the EGM about the board and auditors still claiming to have net assets of almost $1 billion.
After all, why would the B&B banking syndicate take a 75% haircut if the business was even vaguely solvent?
As it turned out, I wasn't on the Alinta Energy share register and had forgotten to send off a proxy from the better half who was. Thankfully, chairman Len Gill cut us some slack and we were allowed to ask questions after registered shareholders had finished.
Below are the edited highlights from what was a pretty lively meeting:
Opening support for the B&B deal as other shareholders slam the board
Explain all the history of Babcock deals and fees
Please produce some more accurate accounts and stop claiming to be worth $1 billion
What on earth are you doing hiring UBS given they created Babcock?
Why was the Oakey power station chosen for this deal?
How much did we pay for Alinta assets and what went wrong?
Insulation, spivs and the NSW ALP - a Cornwall interpretation
A quieter public council meeting at Manningham
After heavy fireworks at the December council meeting and then more sparks at a special council meeting on February 10, Manningham's February 23 public council meeting ended up being a relatively tame affair.
A change to the meeting procedures whereby you can only have alternating speakers for and against a motion, meant that my contributions were substantially scaled back.
At previous meetings, if all councillors agreed on something everyone could speak. The rule change, which I opposed, meant that only the mover and seconder could speak, unless there was someone who wanted to vote against.
Anyway, here is the edited audio of the rather thin two contributions for the night:
Notice of motion over state government planning interventions
Asking 4 questions about planning related matters
From councillor to parliament
Thanks to all those councillors who sent in updates and corrections to this list tracking councillors in Parliament. We started with 79 and are now have north of 100 examples of current and past federal and state politicians who got their start serving on their local council. Below is a sample of some of the new entries on the list and please send any corrrections or additions to stephen@maynereport.com:
Craig Bildstein: a Liberal Party member of the Legislative Assembly, he represented Mildura from 1988 to 1996 when he was defeated by Russell Savage. A former journalist, which included a position as chief political writer for the now defunct The News, he was also a Mildura City Councillor from 1986-1987.
Vini Ciccarello: a mayor of Norwood in South Australia for seven years, the Labor Party member first won the seat of Norwood in 1997 and has remained in Parliament ever since.
Peter Crisp: formally a councillor in the Wentworth Shire in regional NSW, in 2006 he crossed the border and defeated independent Russell Savage to win the Victorian Legislative Assembly seat of Mildura for The Nationals.
Pauline Hanson: the former fish and chip shop owner, Liberal party member and One Nation leader began her move into parliament following a stint as a councillor for the City of Ipswich.
Top women on Aussie boards
Who are the most powerful women in the Australian professional directors' club? Click here for our stab at what we reckon is the top bracket. Below are our top 3, with Carolyn Hewson joining the club courtesy of her recent appointment to the BHP-Billiton board:
1. Catherine Livingstone: arguably the most accomplished female CEO from her six-year stint running Cochlear up until 2000. Now a director of Macquarie Group, where she chairs the audit committee and chair of Telstra. Also previously chaired the CSIRO.
2. Elizabeth Alexander: the former PWC partner is chairman of the booming CSL and was previously a long-serving director of Amcor and Boral. She currently also sits on the Medibank Private and Dexus boards. She is also a member of the Takeovers Panel and Financial Reporting Council and a former President of the AICD from 2000-03.
3. Carolyn Hewson: former investment banker now sitting on the Westpac, BHP and AGL boards. Quit AMP out of frustration in 2002 before things really went pear-shaped and also had an earlier stint with CSR.
The rather toxic Mr Garrett
Laura Tingle's fascinating page one feature in The AFR yesterday about Kevin Rudd's four-person Kitchen Cabinet comprising himself, Wayne Swan, Julia Gillard and Lindsay Tanner further strengthens the argument that poor old Peter Garrett has been treated badly. That said, Cornwall points out just how toxic Garrett has become...
Government bonds list and the great Rudd debt spree
The Mayne Report remains the only publication in the country which directly tracks Federal government bond issues as they unfold.
As the globe focuses on sovereign debt servicing risks, surely the record debt issuance by the Rudd Government should be receiving some more attention.
There has now been more than $50 billion raised since the second stimulus package was unveiled 13 months ago. Below are the bond tender results since the last edition and you'll notice each has produced interest rates well above the 4% projected in the budget but no shortage of bidders:
Wednesday, March 3, 2010: $500m tender of 10 year bonds expiring in April 2020 were sold for an average yield of 5.45% and was 3.7 times over-subscribed.
Friday, February 26, 2010: $1b tender of 2 year bonds expiring in November 2012 were sold for an average yield of 4.74% and was 2.6 times over-subscribed.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010: $300m tender of 11 year bonds expiring in May 2021 were sold for an average yield of 5.62% and was 4.6 times over-subscribed.
Whilst Barnaby Joyce continues to wax lyrically about the evils of debt, it is worth noting the relativities given that the US will this week be offering more than $US200 billion of paper ranging from treasury notes to 30 year bonds. Governments all over the world are awash with record levels of debt and the whole system is surely unsustainable.
Tassie Libs blaze the trail on pokies ahead of Productivity Commission report
The Productivity Commission handed over its final report on the pokies industry to the federal government a couple of weeks back and we've now got to sit back and wait for it to be made public in a few weeks time.
However, the campaign to end Australia's status as the world's biggest per capita gamblers took an important step forward last week when the Tasmanian Liberals committed to a $1 maximum bet on the pokies, something the PC flagged in its draft report.
Senator Nick Xenophon and Paul Bendat, the resourceful publisher of www.pokieact.org, were both in Tasmania last week when the Greens and the Liberals agreed that a $1 maximum bet was the way to go. Check out how The Examiner covered the story.
Meanwhile, go here to check out our collection of videos on the anti-pokies campaign.
The Hong Kong shareholder activist gets more political
David Webb was an old BZW banker in Hong Kong who made his pile and then wanted to protect it. I still rate him as the best retail shareholder activist in the world and his achievement of getting on the board of the company which runs the Hong Kong Stock Exchange remains a clear highlight.
Whilst the main game is corporate governance in a market where best practice isn't always followed, David Webb occasionally weighs in on political matters. Check out his latest story on anonymous government spin by the Hong Kong government.
Donate to help fund our activism
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Thanks to everyone who has chipped in a collective $5000 worth of donations over the past few months and you can check out their details on this honour board.
If you fancy giving us a hand to help fund our activism and keep The Mayne Report going as a free service, just click on the image below:
More additions and updates for The Mayne Report Rich List
The Mayne Report Rich List continues to be easily the most popular feature on our website. We've got more than 1400 names with those who've fallen back below our $10 million cut off now italicised. As usual, we've been combing the daily newspapers for snippets and have come up with eight new names for this edition:
Mackinnon family: having owned the prized 2630 ha Kaladbro Estate property in Western Victoria for 150 years, a $25 million offer from Qatar-based Hassad Food proved too tempting in early 2010.
Mario Gallo: was one of three shareholders in Sydney-based Sasso Pre-cast Concrete which was sold to Brickworks for $35 million in March 2010.
Marchant family: large land holder with substantial cotton and horse breeding interests based around Goondiwindi in Queensland.
Mario Nicomede: was one of three shareholders in Sydney-based Sasso Pre-cast Concrete which was sold to Brickworks for $35 million in March 2010.
O'Donohue family: sold an industrial property in the Melbourne suburb of Cranbourne to Investa Property Group for almost $30 million in early 2010.
Sullivan family: wealthy farmers who sold their 1426 hectare Boggabilla property Mullala to listed Prime Ag for $15.1 million in 2008.
David Tang: a private property investor who in 2009 paid $44 million to buy the office tower at 82 Northbourne Avenue in Canberra.
Paul Tolomeo: was one of three shareholders in Sydney-based Sasso Pre-cast Concrete which was sold to Brickworks for $35 million in March 2010.
Introducing the Cornwall shop
Former Fairfax and Crikey cartoonist Mark Cornwall has been contributing his satirical commentary to The Mayne Report since March 2009. The cartoons are now available to purchase and make a great gift. Here is a collection of his best toons and there are now also some amusing animations:
ASIC jails a second naughty boy for 2010
Is ASIC an effective corporate cop? You be the judge as this is the list of 349 people they have sent to jail since it was established in January 1991. There were only 19 incarcerations in 2008, and in 2009 we only reached 15, one of the lowest figures in years. So much for justice being served swiftly against all those wrong-doers exposed by the global financial crisis.
Anyway, the plod has put away a second punter in 2010 and the details are as follows:
18 February 2010: the former head of Newcastle investment company, Whet Investments Ltd, Hugh Gordon, of Redheads was sentenced in the NSW District Court to eighteen months imprisonment to be released after serving eleven months and then entering into good behavior bond for 2 years. The sentence was stayed and bail continued to 9 April 2010, to assess whether the offender is suitable to serve his sentence by way of home detention or periodic detention.
Sounds like yet another piece of small fry in the slammer, or home detention as it may end up.
Capital raising plays since the last edition
There has been very little to report on the capital raising front so far this year, but the full list of plays since January last year makes for happier reading and is available here. The only play of note since the last edition was as follows:
February 24: Powerlan: $5000 into 4-for-1 entitlement offer at 6c with overs and exited at 7c for gain of $830.
And here is the breakdown of the $25,000 in applications currently lodged:
Argo: $10,000 so far into 15,000 SPP at $6.31 or VWAP. Closes March 29 and allotted April 14.
Charter Hall: $5000 into 2-for-5 entitlement offer at 65c with overs which closed March 5 and trades March 17.
Norfolk Group: $10,000 into 2-for-9 entitlement offer at 72c with overs which closed February 26 and trades March 9.
Assessing the capital raising pipeline
And here is the very thin list of known offers in the pipeline which remain open and we're considering:
Argo: $15,000 SPP at $6.31 or VWAP. Closes March 29 and allotted April 14.
Devine Ltd: 3-for-4 entitlement offer at 20c which closes March 22 and trades March 31.
Lend Lease: 5-for-22 entitlement offer at $7.70 with no overs which closes March 24 and trades April 8.
Robe Australia: 1-for-1 at 1.1c with overs. Closes March 16 and trades March 25.
Let's hope things get a more active as the year progresses, otherwise an alternative major funding vehicle for our shareholder activism will have to be found.
Cornwall on the Mad Monk
Capital raisings dry up so different investment tactics employed
In order to free up capital to participate in all those equity raisings last year, we whittled the core portfolio of more than 700 stocks down to a total investment of less than $40,000.
These days things are slightly different because the February 25, 2010 portfolio snapshot shows 761 holdings worth $144,403, which is about 50% geared. Rather than an average holding worth just $57, this has leapt to $189 courtesy of some larger investments.
There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the market looked pretty good value down near 4500. Secondly, I'd prepaid all the interest on a $50,000 margin loan in 2009-10 for Paula, seeing as she was headed for the top tax bracket courtesy of some solid capital gains.
On discovering that there was no way to claw back or roll over the interest if there was no margin loan, the decision was taken to borrow the full $50,000 and buy some high yielding investments with strong prospects of retaining capital values.
They've only got to be held until June 30 and this explains the $20,000 investment in an ANZ hybrid and $18,000 into the Commonwealth Bank's PERLS instrument, which Commsec is happy to lend 80% against. There's something not quite right about a bank lending investors 80% of the value of loan they make back to the bank, but no one seems to care too much.
I probably should have just stuck with the super safe debt instruments but was foolish enough to buy 6000 Telstra shares at an average price of about $3.25. Oh dear, when the stock fell out of bed, I quit half at $2.96 last week to crystallise a loss of about $1000, but at least the entire holding had generated an $800 fully franked dividend over that brief period.
It was a similar story with Gunns. We almost bought some at 85c and then when the stock tanked after a disappointing profit result, I did spend $6500 buying 10,000 at 65c. Within days, it was down to 55c so I quit half last week and now they are back to 65c. That was a quick $500 loss.
There have been some happier investments in recent weeks. I picked the bottom with Myer in buying 3000 shares at $3.16 and a $6000 play on Rio Tinto at $66 has produced a paper gain of $1000 in a couple of weeks.
Similarly, I've ploughed $3000 into News Corp voting shares on my account in order to be able to put up a shareholder resolution at the 2011 AGM in New York. The requirement in America is that you continuously own at least $US2000 worth of shares for 12 months before the proxy deadline. That sure is easier than in Australia where you must have signatures from shareholders who speak for 5% of the company or 100 separate signatures from small shareholders to get a resolution up.
As for the trades since the last edition, they are all detailed here.
Cornwall on Aussie bloke violence
From the press room: Crikey, ABC radio, Inside Business and a Sunday special
It has been a busy time on the media front, including a contribution on Virgin Blue's strange CEO announcement with Lateline Business last Thursday:
And with all the celebrations of Crikey's 10th birthday, it was amusing to rediscover the Sunday program's gentle profile from 2004. Crikey's new editor Sophie Black donned the seven foot foam suit at the 10th birthday party, the biggest outing it has had since Adam Shand's Channel Nine story all those years ago.
In other TV action, there was also this story on Inside Business about Kerry Stokes two weeks ago:
Keeping up appearances in Crikey
Ever since getting elected to Manningham Council there just hasn't been enough hours in the day, but the Crikey contributions have kept trickling along and there have been four over the past three weeks, included two last week on the big Kerry Stokes related party deal.
Excessive debt sees Kerry Stokes labelled ‘former billionaire'
Friday, March 5 2010
How debt-laden Coates Hire takeover hurt Kerry Stokes
Thursday, March 4 2010
Brumby's special hardware deals for pokies giant
Friday, February 26 2010
Revealed: Crikey lavished $200 on Conroy at black-tie journos dinner
Friday, February 19 2010
A range of ABC radio chats
The regular weekly spot with Lindy Burns on 774 ABC Melbourne isn't quite so regular in 2010 because I've joined the board of Manningham's major aged care provider, Manningham Centre Association, and we have our monthly meetings at 6pm on a Wednesday.
This is very interesting and great experience given Manningham delivers a unique wholistic approach to aged care combining residential care with other services such as home and community care run by the one community-based organisation. The annual revenues of MCA are $10 million and we're dealing with assets worth almost $30 million, so it's very important to devote the time and get things right. The point of all this is to say that I'm a no show on the radio tomorrow night due to an MCA board meeting but there's been plenty of lively radio material since the last edition, such as the following:
774 ABC Melbourne - discussing Kevin Rudd's hospital reform plans, interest rates and the profit season on March 3.
702 ABC Sydney - discussing Kerry Stokes and the merger between Seven and Westrac on March 3.
774 ABC Melbourne - chatted to Derek Guille on February 26 about dodgy political governance after the big media plan leak.
774 ABC Melbourne - discussing Kerry Stokes, Pacific Brands and internet TV on Feb 23.
ABC Radio's PM Program - discussing John Brumby's spindoctoring fiasco.
Click the link below to get the latest radio and AGM audio
Tales from the talk circuit - Melbourne Rotary Club and an evening with the sharks
The talk circuit never ceases to throw up some interesting events and so it was last month when I spoke for about 30 minutes at the Melbourne Aquarium surrounded by very large fish.
The event was the 5th birthday party for an IT consultancy and they had some big name clients there who made for lively conversation over nibbles.
One observer pointed out that Qantas never bothered taking down the 3 digit security number on the back of credit cards because they couldn't be bothered with the extra cost and processing and would instead just wear the fraud losses.
There was another gig at short notice for the Melbourne Rotary Club at the Windsor Hotel opposite State Parliament two weeks ago when long-serving David Jones director and business lobbyist Katie Lahey had to pull out at the last minute.
It turned out the Melbourne Rotary President was none other than Barry Watts, the former Southcorp packaging boss who I remembered catching up with way back in 1995 when editing the Herald Sun's business section.
Anyway, Barry sent through a very nice thank you letter which sits at the top of our speeches feedback section on the site.
Pokies, Cornwall and NAB AGM join our video blog specials
From the archives of The Mayne Report video blog we have added 3 more playlists to this collection of special edition videos. The new additions are our Pokies collection, Cornwall cartoons and the NAB 2009 AGM which was a lively affair.
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11.25am March 4: Watch Inside Business at 11pm on ABC1 tonight. Have given grabs about bizarre way Virgin Blue's CEO appointment was given to papers not ASX.
6.03pm March 3: On 774 ABC Melbourne discussing Rudd's hospital reform, interest rates and profit season http://video.maynereport.com/audio/774_030310.mp3
12.40pm March 2: Just on 702 ABC Sydney morning show about Kerry Stokes with James Chessell from The Oz http://video.maynereport.com/audio/702_030310.mp3
1.20pm Feb 28: Chatted to Derek Guille about dodgy political governance on 774 ABC Melbourne http://video.maynereport.com/audio/774_260210_Derek.mp3
1.09pm Feb 26: Discovered this old profile of Crikey from Channel Nine's Sunday Program in 2003. Check it out: http://video.maynereport.com/sundayp.html
8.56pm Feb 25: On ABC Radio National's PM program discussing Brumby's spindoctoring fiasco http://video.maynereport.com/audio/PM_260210.mp3
7.04pm Feb 25: Crikey story on Woolies/Manningham today, plus did interviews for Inside Business on Stokes and ABC's PM program on Brumby spinning fiasco.
3.11pm Feb 24: Enjoyed Crikey's 10th birthday function at Supper Club last night. Editor Sophie Black even donned the 7 foot Crikey foam suit. Very funny.
6.16pm Feb 23: regular chat on 774 ABC Melbourne discussing Kerry Stokes, Pacific Brands and internet TV http://video.maynereport.com/audio/774_240210.mp3
3.16pm Feb 22: Just sent out bumper email edition covering political donations, Stokes, Manningham, state debt and much more: http://www.maynereport.com/
7.54pm Feb 21: Just had a coffee with Nicholas Bolton at Sydney Hilton after grilling Swans chairman Richard Colless about woeful ING pokies performance.
6.32pm Feb 20: Working hard today on email edition. And how bad was Akerman on Insiders? He even confused recent Altona by-election with Aston from 2001.
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.
enjoy this lively edition of The Mayne Report which covers everything from campaign finance to corporate governance, local politics, Kerry Stokes, the Rich List, privatisation, capital raisings, our recent share dealings and much more.
Revealed: Queensland Labor's $2m frozen investment
For all you students and participants in Australia's political campaign finance system, this little tale will be of interest. If you look at the 2008-09 AEC return filed by Labor Holdings, the investment arm of the Queensland ALP, you'll see $174,666 in income from the Trinity Property Trust.
Similarly, if you look at the 2008-09 annual report of Trinity Property Trust you'll see that the fund has been frozen since June 2009 with no withdrawals allowed. Trinity is not alone, as this list tracking more than $20 billion in frozen funds suggests.
The Trinity Property Trust paid a distribution of 6.04c for the 2008-09 year and 10.52c in 2007-08 as you can see on page 4 of the annual report.
Given that the fund pays distributions each February and August, it appears Queensland Labor has about $2 million tied up in the frozen fund which has seen its value crash by 30% over the past two years. Going into a Federal election year that's a fair whack to be frozen given that the net assets of Labor Holdings are said to have fallen below $30 million for the first time in years.
The $500 million Trinity fund declared a loss of almost $100 million in 2008-09 and the latest December half year shows the red ink continues to flow. This hasn't stopped the manager, teetering listed company Trinity Group, from helping itself to almost $3 million in fees for the December half.
Trinity Group shares have plunged from $3 in mid-2007 to just 10c after it was caught with too much debt during the GFC and was then engulfed by a Labor mates lobbying scandal after former Labor staffer Ross Daley was paid a $1 million success fee by Trinity for luring $100 million from SunSuper into the Trinity Property Trust.
SunSuper is Queensland's biggest industry fund with $14 billion under management and a board which is a 50-50 split between union and employer group representatives.
It has an unusual structure in that the board also comprises the investment committee. The longest serving SunSuper director is union strongman and Queensland factional kingmaker Bill Ludwig, who was first appointed way back in 1988.
Bill Ludwig's son is Senator Joe Ludwig, the Rudd Government minister responsible for Australia's weak campaign finance disclosure laws. Big Bill recently told The Australian's Natasha Bita that the finances of Labor Holdings were "none of your business".
This sort of attitude was slammed in Crikey and there clearly ought to be more revealed about Labor's governance systems and party finances in Queensland. Similarly, SunSuper's $100 million investment in Trinity raises exactly the sort of governance questions covered in this comment piece about industry funds run by Fairfax's Money section last November.
After all, at the time SunSuper made its $100 million investment, Trinity was chaired by former Queensland Labor Treasurer Keith de Lacy, whose claims at the 2008 Trinity AGM now look quite hilarious. SunSuper members have so far lost an estimated $30 million on the ill-timed Trinity investment.
The Australian has led the way on this story and here are some relevent links:
SunSuper's $100m Trinity investment frozen
Sacked lobbyist to keep $1m success fee
However, despite a number of emails it wasn't possible to get The Australian interested in the story of the Queensland ALP having about $2 million frozen in the Trinity Property Trust.
Meanwhile, the Victorian Liberals continue to show the Labor Bruvvas how party funds should be invested. This latest stockmarket spurt shows the Cormack Foundation is now up to a share portfolio worth more than $61 million with Wesfarmers, BHP and Rio Tinto the biggest contributors, according to our modelling of their portfolio based on this 2008-09 return to the AEC.
Dramatic drop in $100m losses declared
As was noted in our edition on March 3 last year, a record 57 ASX-listed companies reported losses of more than $100 million for the half year ended December 31, 2008. Never before has the red ink flowed quite like February 2009. Last August was almost as bad when 52 companies reported losses exceeding $100 million for the period ended June 30, 2009.
Since the All Ords bottomed at 3145 on March 9 last year, the stockmarket has recovered about 50% and the red ink is no longer flowing. However, we still did have 9 companies join the $100 million loss club last month and they were mainly property plays or teetering former Babcock vehicles. From biggest to smallest we hereby present the latest names to join the $100 million loss club during the February 2010 reporting season:
GPT Group: the property group announced a $1.07 billion loss for 2009 after more heavy write-downs but this was an improvement on the $3.25 billion loss in 2008.
Prime Infrastructure: after over-paying for infrastructure assets all over the world, the write-downs kept coming for the old Babcock & Brown Infrastructure which produced a net loss of $731.8 million for the six months to December 31, 2009.
MAP Group: the old Macquarie Airports managed a net loss of $572.7 million for the December 2009 half year but this was largely due to accounting quirks and the $345 million divorce settlement with the Millionaires Factory rather than any major operational problems within the portfolio.
Goodman Group: the debt-laden industrial property giant raised a stack of capital to save itself in 2009 but heavy write-downs produced a net loss of $482.9 million for the half year to December 2009.
Westfield: $3.5 billion in write-downs, largely related to US and UK investments, delivered a bottom line loss of $458 million for calendar year 2009.
Australand: following a profit of $40 million in 2008, the Singapore-controlled property group announced a $298 million loss for 2009 courtesy of write-downs.
Alinta Energy: the old Babcock & Brown Power suffered further write-downs to produce a net loss of $260.9 million for the half year to December 31, 2009.
Paperlinx: plunged to a net loss of $175.3 million for the December 2009 half year largely due to ongoing red ink from its Australian Paper operations before they were sold to Nippon Paper.
Valad Property Group: the struggling property group copped more write-downs to produce a net loss of $103.6 million for the half year to December 31, 2009.
Check out this full list of $100m losses by financial year and look at where these losses sit in the all-time list tracking $100 million losses from biggest to smallest. Also, listen to this recent discussion about the $100 million loss club with Lindy Burns on 774 ABC Melbourne.
Lend Lease joins the $1 billion capital raising club
The frenzy of capital raisings in 2009 have now dramatically subsided although Lend Lease came back for a second bite this month and will become the 25th company to have raised more than $1 billion in fresh equity since the beginning of 2008.
Lend Lease is doing the right thing with a 5-for-22 entitlement offer at $7.70 which doesn't allow for anyone to apply for extras and generates a premium for non-participants through one book build.
It is certainly better than the selective $302 millon placement at $6.05 the company did back in February 2009 when the accompanying share purchase plan was actually abandoned because the stock subsequently tanked to near $5 when the All Ords was bottoming in early March.
Fast forward 12 months and those institutions which supported the placement have had a good ride and now everyone is being asked to participate on equal terms this time.
Check out our master list tracking all the major capital raisings since the beginning of 2008. We'll never see anything like it again.
Kerry Stokes makes our ten Engin shares disappear
Whilst 25 companies have raised more than $1 billion in fresh equity from investors over the past two years there are plenty of other examples of value being permanently destroyed in the world's biggest small share portfolio.
Indeed, former billionaire Kerry Stokes has come up with a unique method of vaporising my 10 shares in Engin, a struggling internet company 58% owned by his listed Seven Network Ltd.
The letter from the Engin share registry provider late last year included the following advice:
At the General Meeting of shareholders held on 16 November 2009 a resolution was passed to consolidate the shares in the company on a 1 for 50 basis. Accordingly you have now been issued with 1 share for every 50 shares previously held as shown below.
Previous holding: 10
Number of shares now held: 0
Not even a "thank you and good night" sentiment. You'd think there might be some sort of rounding up provision in such an exercise. I've been wiped off the register with no compensation. Engin last traded at 65c, suggesting my 10 shares would have been worth 13c had this punitive action not been taken.
Having already dropped $400 getting onto the Engin share register, I'll have to outlay another $500 in order to annoy the likes of Ryan Stokes and Bruce McWilliam at the next AGM, if the company lasts that long.
Tattersall's deal a rare Australian privatisation play
The 1990s was the decade of privatisation in Australia. Victoria's Kennett Government flogged almost $40 billion worth of assets, most state banks and insurance offices were disposed of, Paul Keating blazed the trail with Qantas, CSL and the Commonwealth Bank and then John Howard followed through with Telstra and all major Australian airports.
Whilst Tony Abbott has announced plans to sell Medibank Private, there has been very few privatisation deals over the past two years so it was a rare moment indeed last week when Tattersall's was declared the buyer of an exclusive 40 year lottery licence in NSW for $850 million.
The Mayne Report is Australia's only publication to comprehensively track privatisations over the past 20 years and you can check out our full updated list of more than 80 deals here.
With the NSW Government seemingly abandoning promised power privatisation deals, the next big offer is likely to be from the Queensland Government which is ploughing ahead with a November float of Queensland Rail, despite strong public, industry and union opposition.
Whilst it is still early days, the Queensland Government seems to have recklessly ruled out a trade sale of part of Queensland Rail to the big coal industry players even though that would probably produce a much bigger price than a public float.
There is a long and sorry history of Australian governments preferring floats over trade sales for political and industrial reasons, thereby ultimately costing taxpayers billions in missed sale proceeds.
Being from a Labor Government, Premier Anna Bligh and Treasurer Andrew Fraser are clearly pushing the envelope pursuing any form of sale, so the float will no doubt delay serious efficiency gains until well after the event in an effort to placate union anger.
Swick Mining joins the placement shame file
You can usually rely on Perth-based companies to take the governance low road. The latest offender is Swick Mining Services which announced a $17.5 million placement at 40c a share last week. The deal exceeded the 15% annual limit and involved participation by directors, yet there is no sign of a share purchase plan for retail investors on comparable terms. These turkeys clearly should have done a pro-rata offer that treated everyone equally.
This sort of thing happens less frequently these days but there are still plenty of well-known names on our shame file tracking the placement club which fails to look after retail investors.
Introducing Nicholas Bolton to Richard Colless
ING's pokies-focused listed Real Estate Entertainment Fund held an information meeting in Sydney on February 22 and we gave you a lively written account of proceedings in the February 23 edition.
The ING stable of listed funds are all chaired by Sydney Swans President Richard Colless and they have been an absolute dog with billions lost courtesy of excessive debt and ill-disciplined buying sprees at the top of the market.
Throw in some apparently related deals involving ING pokies venues and The Swans and it made for quite a heady mix as these edited audio files attest:
What accountability has been shown for all these losses? Tell us more about the deal with the Penrith Panthers
How did you handle these Club Swans deals involving the chairman?
Can the manager be sacked and do these deferred fees serve as a poison pill?
Have you thought about raising equity and who are our lenders?
Take us through the pokies environment with Productivity Commission report looming
The Age's business gossip columnist Mark Hawthorne covered the meeting from Melbourne but wasn't interested in the pokies debate, instead just noting that greenmailer Nicholas Bolton was a silent observer of proceedings.
It was amusing introducing Bolton to Colless after the meeting and then later spending an hour with the likely lad over coffee at the Hilton. He was quite impressive.
Questioning the old Babcock & Brown Power directors
Alinta Energy, the rebadged Babcock & Brown Power, held an EGM in Sydney on February 22 to approve an effective $300 million hair-cut for the old parent company.
It was certainly a very odd deal with Babcock & Brown's bankers agreeing to surrender a $453 million liability in exchange for cash, shares and a power station asset worth barely $100 million.
The AFR's Street Talk column had another interesting item yesterday suggesting Alinta Energy's debts remain well in excess of its assets, which backs up one of my criticisms at the EGM about the board and auditors still claiming to have net assets of almost $1 billion.
After all, why would the B&B banking syndicate take a 75% haircut if the business was even vaguely solvent?
As it turned out, I wasn't on the Alinta Energy share register and had forgotten to send off a proxy from the better half who was. Thankfully, chairman Len Gill cut us some slack and we were allowed to ask questions after registered shareholders had finished.
Below are the edited highlights from what was a pretty lively meeting:
Opening support for the B&B deal as other shareholders slam the board
Explain all the history of Babcock deals and fees
Please produce some more accurate accounts and stop claiming to be worth $1 billion
What on earth are you doing hiring UBS given they created Babcock?
Why was the Oakey power station chosen for this deal?
How much did we pay for Alinta assets and what went wrong?
Insulation, spivs and the NSW ALP - a Cornwall interpretation
A quieter public council meeting at Manningham
After heavy fireworks at the December council meeting and then more sparks at a special council meeting on February 10, Manningham's February 23 public council meeting ended up being a relatively tame affair.
A change to the meeting procedures whereby you can only have alternating speakers for and against a motion, meant that my contributions were substantially scaled back.
At previous meetings, if all councillors agreed on something everyone could speak. The rule change, which I opposed, meant that only the mover and seconder could speak, unless there was someone who wanted to vote against.
Anyway, here is the edited audio of the rather thin two contributions for the night:
Notice of motion over state government planning interventions
Asking 4 questions about planning related matters
From councillor to parliament
Thanks to all those councillors who sent in updates and corrections to this list tracking councillors in Parliament. We started with 79 and are now have north of 100 examples of current and past federal and state politicians who got their start serving on their local council. Below is a sample of some of the new entries on the list and please send any corrrections or additions to stephen@maynereport.com:
Craig Bildstein: a Liberal Party member of the Legislative Assembly, he represented Mildura from 1988 to 1996 when he was defeated by Russell Savage. A former journalist, which included a position as chief political writer for the now defunct The News, he was also a Mildura City Councillor from 1986-1987.
Vini Ciccarello: a mayor of Norwood in South Australia for seven years, the Labor Party member first won the seat of Norwood in 1997 and has remained in Parliament ever since.
Peter Crisp: formally a councillor in the Wentworth Shire in regional NSW, in 2006 he crossed the border and defeated independent Russell Savage to win the Victorian Legislative Assembly seat of Mildura for The Nationals.
Pauline Hanson: the former fish and chip shop owner, Liberal party member and One Nation leader began her move into parliament following a stint as a councillor for the City of Ipswich.
Top women on Aussie boards
Who are the most powerful women in the Australian professional directors' club? Click here for our stab at what we reckon is the top bracket. Below are our top 3, with Carolyn Hewson joining the club courtesy of her recent appointment to the BHP-Billiton board:
1. Catherine Livingstone: arguably the most accomplished female CEO from her six-year stint running Cochlear up until 2000. Now a director of Macquarie Group, where she chairs the audit committee and chair of Telstra. Also previously chaired the CSIRO.
2. Elizabeth Alexander: the former PWC partner is chairman of the booming CSL and was previously a long-serving director of Amcor and Boral. She currently also sits on the Medibank Private and Dexus boards. She is also a member of the Takeovers Panel and Financial Reporting Council and a former President of the AICD from 2000-03.
3. Carolyn Hewson: former investment banker now sitting on the Westpac, BHP and AGL boards. Quit AMP out of frustration in 2002 before things really went pear-shaped and also had an earlier stint with CSR.
The rather toxic Mr Garrett
Laura Tingle's fascinating page one feature in The AFR yesterday about Kevin Rudd's four-person Kitchen Cabinet comprising himself, Wayne Swan, Julia Gillard and Lindsay Tanner further strengthens the argument that poor old Peter Garrett has been treated badly. That said, Cornwall points out just how toxic Garrett has become...
Government bonds list and the great Rudd debt spree
The Mayne Report remains the only publication in the country which directly tracks Federal government bond issues as they unfold.
As the globe focuses on sovereign debt servicing risks, surely the record debt issuance by the Rudd Government should be receiving some more attention.
There has now been more than $50 billion raised since the second stimulus package was unveiled 13 months ago. Below are the bond tender results since the last edition and you'll notice each has produced interest rates well above the 4% projected in the budget but no shortage of bidders:
Wednesday, March 3, 2010: $500m tender of 10 year bonds expiring in April 2020 were sold for an average yield of 5.45% and was 3.7 times over-subscribed.
Friday, February 26, 2010: $1b tender of 2 year bonds expiring in November 2012 were sold for an average yield of 4.74% and was 2.6 times over-subscribed.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010: $300m tender of 11 year bonds expiring in May 2021 were sold for an average yield of 5.62% and was 4.6 times over-subscribed.
Whilst Barnaby Joyce continues to wax lyrically about the evils of debt, it is worth noting the relativities given that the US will this week be offering more than $US200 billion of paper ranging from treasury notes to 30 year bonds. Governments all over the world are awash with record levels of debt and the whole system is surely unsustainable.
Tassie Libs blaze the trail on pokies ahead of Productivity Commission report
The Productivity Commission handed over its final report on the pokies industry to the federal government a couple of weeks back and we've now got to sit back and wait for it to be made public in a few weeks time.
However, the campaign to end Australia's status as the world's biggest per capita gamblers took an important step forward last week when the Tasmanian Liberals committed to a $1 maximum bet on the pokies, something the PC flagged in its draft report.
Senator Nick Xenophon and Paul Bendat, the resourceful publisher of www.pokieact.org, were both in Tasmania last week when the Greens and the Liberals agreed that a $1 maximum bet was the way to go. Check out how The Examiner covered the story.
Meanwhile, go here to check out our collection of videos on the anti-pokies campaign.
The Hong Kong shareholder activist gets more political
David Webb was an old BZW banker in Hong Kong who made his pile and then wanted to protect it. I still rate him as the best retail shareholder activist in the world and his achievement of getting on the board of the company which runs the Hong Kong Stock Exchange remains a clear highlight.
Whilst the main game is corporate governance in a market where best practice isn't always followed, David Webb occasionally weighs in on political matters. Check out his latest story on anonymous government spin by the Hong Kong government.
Donate to help fund our activism
The Mayne Report is a free service which costs almost $100,000 a year to run and relies partly on donations to survive.
Thanks to everyone who has chipped in a collective $5000 worth of donations over the past few months and you can check out their details on this honour board.
If you fancy giving us a hand to help fund our activism and keep The Mayne Report going as a free service, just click on the image below:
More additions and updates for The Mayne Report Rich List
The Mayne Report Rich List continues to be easily the most popular feature on our website. We've got more than 1400 names with those who've fallen back below our $10 million cut off now italicised. As usual, we've been combing the daily newspapers for snippets and have come up with eight new names for this edition:
Mackinnon family: having owned the prized 2630 ha Kaladbro Estate property in Western Victoria for 150 years, a $25 million offer from Qatar-based Hassad Food proved too tempting in early 2010.
Mario Gallo: was one of three shareholders in Sydney-based Sasso Pre-cast Concrete which was sold to Brickworks for $35 million in March 2010.
Marchant family: large land holder with substantial cotton and horse breeding interests based around Goondiwindi in Queensland.
Mario Nicomede: was one of three shareholders in Sydney-based Sasso Pre-cast Concrete which was sold to Brickworks for $35 million in March 2010.
O'Donohue family: sold an industrial property in the Melbourne suburb of Cranbourne to Investa Property Group for almost $30 million in early 2010.
Sullivan family: wealthy farmers who sold their 1426 hectare Boggabilla property Mullala to listed Prime Ag for $15.1 million in 2008.
David Tang: a private property investor who in 2009 paid $44 million to buy the office tower at 82 Northbourne Avenue in Canberra.
Paul Tolomeo: was one of three shareholders in Sydney-based Sasso Pre-cast Concrete which was sold to Brickworks for $35 million in March 2010.
Introducing the Cornwall shop
Former Fairfax and Crikey cartoonist Mark Cornwall has been contributing his satirical commentary to The Mayne Report since March 2009. The cartoons are now available to purchase and make a great gift. Here is a collection of his best toons and there are now also some amusing animations:
ASIC jails a second naughty boy for 2010
Is ASIC an effective corporate cop? You be the judge as this is the list of 349 people they have sent to jail since it was established in January 1991. There were only 19 incarcerations in 2008, and in 2009 we only reached 15, one of the lowest figures in years. So much for justice being served swiftly against all those wrong-doers exposed by the global financial crisis.
Anyway, the plod has put away a second punter in 2010 and the details are as follows:
18 February 2010: the former head of Newcastle investment company, Whet Investments Ltd, Hugh Gordon, of Redheads was sentenced in the NSW District Court to eighteen months imprisonment to be released after serving eleven months and then entering into good behavior bond for 2 years. The sentence was stayed and bail continued to 9 April 2010, to assess whether the offender is suitable to serve his sentence by way of home detention or periodic detention.
Sounds like yet another piece of small fry in the slammer, or home detention as it may end up.
Capital raising plays since the last edition
There has been very little to report on the capital raising front so far this year, but the full list of plays since January last year makes for happier reading and is available here. The only play of note since the last edition was as follows:
February 24: Powerlan: $5000 into 4-for-1 entitlement offer at 6c with overs and exited at 7c for gain of $830.
And here is the breakdown of the $25,000 in applications currently lodged:
Argo: $10,000 so far into 15,000 SPP at $6.31 or VWAP. Closes March 29 and allotted April 14.
Charter Hall: $5000 into 2-for-5 entitlement offer at 65c with overs which closed March 5 and trades March 17.
Norfolk Group: $10,000 into 2-for-9 entitlement offer at 72c with overs which closed February 26 and trades March 9.
Assessing the capital raising pipeline
And here is the very thin list of known offers in the pipeline which remain open and we're considering:
Argo: $15,000 SPP at $6.31 or VWAP. Closes March 29 and allotted April 14.
Devine Ltd: 3-for-4 entitlement offer at 20c which closes March 22 and trades March 31.
Lend Lease: 5-for-22 entitlement offer at $7.70 with no overs which closes March 24 and trades April 8.
Robe Australia: 1-for-1 at 1.1c with overs. Closes March 16 and trades March 25.
Let's hope things get a more active as the year progresses, otherwise an alternative major funding vehicle for our shareholder activism will have to be found.
Cornwall on the Mad Monk
Capital raisings dry up so different investment tactics employed
In order to free up capital to participate in all those equity raisings last year, we whittled the core portfolio of more than 700 stocks down to a total investment of less than $40,000.
These days things are slightly different because the February 25, 2010 portfolio snapshot shows 761 holdings worth $144,403, which is about 50% geared. Rather than an average holding worth just $57, this has leapt to $189 courtesy of some larger investments.
There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the market looked pretty good value down near 4500. Secondly, I'd prepaid all the interest on a $50,000 margin loan in 2009-10 for Paula, seeing as she was headed for the top tax bracket courtesy of some solid capital gains.
On discovering that there was no way to claw back or roll over the interest if there was no margin loan, the decision was taken to borrow the full $50,000 and buy some high yielding investments with strong prospects of retaining capital values.
They've only got to be held until June 30 and this explains the $20,000 investment in an ANZ hybrid and $18,000 into the Commonwealth Bank's PERLS instrument, which Commsec is happy to lend 80% against. There's something not quite right about a bank lending investors 80% of the value of loan they make back to the bank, but no one seems to care too much.
I probably should have just stuck with the super safe debt instruments but was foolish enough to buy 6000 Telstra shares at an average price of about $3.25. Oh dear, when the stock fell out of bed, I quit half at $2.96 last week to crystallise a loss of about $1000, but at least the entire holding had generated an $800 fully franked dividend over that brief period.
It was a similar story with Gunns. We almost bought some at 85c and then when the stock tanked after a disappointing profit result, I did spend $6500 buying 10,000 at 65c. Within days, it was down to 55c so I quit half last week and now they are back to 65c. That was a quick $500 loss.
There have been some happier investments in recent weeks. I picked the bottom with Myer in buying 3000 shares at $3.16 and a $6000 play on Rio Tinto at $66 has produced a paper gain of $1000 in a couple of weeks.
Similarly, I've ploughed $3000 into News Corp voting shares on my account in order to be able to put up a shareholder resolution at the 2011 AGM in New York. The requirement in America is that you continuously own at least $US2000 worth of shares for 12 months before the proxy deadline. That sure is easier than in Australia where you must have signatures from shareholders who speak for 5% of the company or 100 separate signatures from small shareholders to get a resolution up.
As for the trades since the last edition, they are all detailed here.
Cornwall on Aussie bloke violence
From the press room: Crikey, ABC radio, Inside Business and a Sunday special
It has been a busy time on the media front, including a contribution on Virgin Blue's strange CEO announcement with Lateline Business last Thursday:
And with all the celebrations of Crikey's 10th birthday, it was amusing to rediscover the Sunday program's gentle profile from 2004. Crikey's new editor Sophie Black donned the seven foot foam suit at the 10th birthday party, the biggest outing it has had since Adam Shand's Channel Nine story all those years ago.
In other TV action, there was also this story on Inside Business about Kerry Stokes two weeks ago:
Keeping up appearances in Crikey
Ever since getting elected to Manningham Council there just hasn't been enough hours in the day, but the Crikey contributions have kept trickling along and there have been four over the past three weeks, included two last week on the big Kerry Stokes related party deal.
Excessive debt sees Kerry Stokes labelled ‘former billionaire'
Friday, March 5 2010
How debt-laden Coates Hire takeover hurt Kerry Stokes
Thursday, March 4 2010
Brumby's special hardware deals for pokies giant
Friday, February 26 2010
Revealed: Crikey lavished $200 on Conroy at black-tie journos dinner
Friday, February 19 2010
A range of ABC radio chats
The regular weekly spot with Lindy Burns on 774 ABC Melbourne isn't quite so regular in 2010 because I've joined the board of Manningham's major aged care provider, Manningham Centre Association, and we have our monthly meetings at 6pm on a Wednesday.
This is very interesting and great experience given Manningham delivers a unique wholistic approach to aged care combining residential care with other services such as home and community care run by the one community-based organisation. The annual revenues of MCA are $10 million and we're dealing with assets worth almost $30 million, so it's very important to devote the time and get things right. The point of all this is to say that I'm a no show on the radio tomorrow night due to an MCA board meeting but there's been plenty of lively radio material since the last edition, such as the following:
774 ABC Melbourne - discussing Kevin Rudd's hospital reform plans, interest rates and the profit season on March 3.
702 ABC Sydney - discussing Kerry Stokes and the merger between Seven and Westrac on March 3.
774 ABC Melbourne - chatted to Derek Guille on February 26 about dodgy political governance after the big media plan leak.
774 ABC Melbourne - discussing Kerry Stokes, Pacific Brands and internet TV on Feb 23.
ABC Radio's PM Program - discussing John Brumby's spindoctoring fiasco.
Click the link below to get the latest radio and AGM audio
Tales from the talk circuit - Melbourne Rotary Club and an evening with the sharks
The talk circuit never ceases to throw up some interesting events and so it was last month when I spoke for about 30 minutes at the Melbourne Aquarium surrounded by very large fish.
The event was the 5th birthday party for an IT consultancy and they had some big name clients there who made for lively conversation over nibbles.
One observer pointed out that Qantas never bothered taking down the 3 digit security number on the back of credit cards because they couldn't be bothered with the extra cost and processing and would instead just wear the fraud losses.
There was another gig at short notice for the Melbourne Rotary Club at the Windsor Hotel opposite State Parliament two weeks ago when long-serving David Jones director and business lobbyist Katie Lahey had to pull out at the last minute.
It turned out the Melbourne Rotary President was none other than Barry Watts, the former Southcorp packaging boss who I remembered catching up with way back in 1995 when editing the Herald Sun's business section.
Anyway, Barry sent through a very nice thank you letter which sits at the top of our speeches feedback section on the site.
Pokies, Cornwall and NAB AGM join our video blog specials
From the archives of The Mayne Report video blog we have added 3 more playlists to this collection of special edition videos. The new additions are our Pokies collection, Cornwall cartoons and the NAB 2009 AGM which was a lively affair.
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We have only been twittering for a few months, but now have 1,105 followers and are regularly dropping out the latest developments from AGMs, capital raising plays and even Manningham Council. Sign up below to get the latest updates from all our activity and check out some of the latest tweets:
11.25am March 4: Watch Inside Business at 11pm on ABC1 tonight. Have given grabs about bizarre way Virgin Blue's CEO appointment was given to papers not ASX.
6.03pm March 3: On 774 ABC Melbourne discussing Rudd's hospital reform, interest rates and profit season http://video.maynereport.com/audio/774_030310.mp3
12.40pm March 2: Just on 702 ABC Sydney morning show about Kerry Stokes with James Chessell from The Oz http://video.maynereport.com/audio/702_030310.mp3
1.20pm Feb 28: Chatted to Derek Guille about dodgy political governance on 774 ABC Melbourne http://video.maynereport.com/audio/774_260210_Derek.mp3
1.09pm Feb 26: Discovered this old profile of Crikey from Channel Nine's Sunday Program in 2003. Check it out: http://video.maynereport.com/sundayp.html
8.56pm Feb 25: On ABC Radio National's PM program discussing Brumby's spindoctoring fiasco http://video.maynereport.com/audio/PM_260210.mp3
7.04pm Feb 25: Crikey story on Woolies/Manningham today, plus did interviews for Inside Business on Stokes and ABC's PM program on Brumby spinning fiasco.
3.11pm Feb 24: Enjoyed Crikey's 10th birthday function at Supper Club last night. Editor Sophie Black even donned the 7 foot Crikey foam suit. Very funny.
6.16pm Feb 23: regular chat on 774 ABC Melbourne discussing Kerry Stokes, Pacific Brands and internet TV http://video.maynereport.com/audio/774_240210.mp3
3.16pm Feb 22: Just sent out bumper email edition covering political donations, Stokes, Manningham, state debt and much more: http://www.maynereport.com/
7.54pm Feb 21: Just had a coffee with Nicholas Bolton at Sydney Hilton after grilling Swans chairman Richard Colless about woeful ING pokies performance.
6.32pm Feb 20: Working hard today on email edition. And how bad was Akerman on Insiders? He even confused recent Altona by-election with Aston from 2001.
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.