Wheels Fall Off A Few Deals At Macbank
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday March 18, 2004
Ah, but Christine Lacy finds the bank sells spare parts too.
Bonus cheques at the likes of UBS and the Thundering Herd may be long banked (or spent) but down Martin Place you can carve the air with a knife.
The Millionaires Factory is just days away from balancing its books for year's end. Won't be long, then, before Alan Moss sends the fatted calf to the abattoir for dishing out to the masses.
But it might not be the free run to the line some hoped for. They say these things come in threes and in equity capital markets they must be counting on their fingers hoping that's all there is. Alinta must be doing the same.
It all started last week with the sale of 30 million PBL shares for Colonial. The ``all or nothing" book-build on the 4.5 per cent stake eventually got away but at the lower end of the $11.90 to $12.10 range and rumours raged that the broker picked up a shortfall before then steadily flogging the overhang into a falling market. Not pretty, but we reckon the fee outweighed any loss.
Next day the MacBankers were active again trying to find a home for Alinta's problem child, a 66 per cent stake in Uecomm. At 33c a share there were few takers. Such a classy asset, too.
Macquarie corporate was forced to admit that ``after testing the market" the stake would be retained ``for the current time".
Problem with gas
Offered an opportunity for redemption, into the market Macquarie dived again, trying to rustle up interest in a placement of 29 million Alinta shares.
But all the MacBankers could manage was a price at the tail end of the $6.75 to $7.10 range, an effective 12 per cent discount to the price at which Alinta stock was suspended ahead of itsannouncement.
Still, they raised $195.8 million.
By yesterday, Alinta was down to $6.65 and may be none too happy. But there's upside for the bank in its role also as underwriter to the upcoming $465 million renounceable rights issue to further fund the Duke buy.
Those shares will go at $5.50, now representing a 17 per cent discount to the prevailing share price compared with a very deep near-30 per cent just before the stock was suspended.
As far as we can see, that greatly (and very conveniently) reduces the bank's exposure to any shortfall from the exercise.
In the world of gas, we think that all adds up to a brewing silent-but-deadly.
I'm off to lunch
Macquarie's Moss, rather than overseeing his fast-pedalling troops from his lofty office atop the Westin, was yesterday lunching with the powerful at the newly tricked-up Wentworth.
It was a star-studded audience at the hotel to hear the gospel according to Gonski.
Only missing was Aristocrat's John Lame Ducker, who couldn't get his head out of the sand for Gonski's speech.
There was well-paid boss of EnergyAustralia Paul Broad, a one-time PowerTel director, along with TAB and Telstra director Belinda Hutchinson and SBS director Carla Zampatti.
In a tight 15-minute number, Gonski spoke of the independence of a chairman and how they should resist the temptation to act as a de facto boss.
In a room not surprisingly packed with Coca-Cola Amatil and ANZ executives and a host of Freehills partners, there was even a spray at the idea of a lead director, which Gonski said only highlighted an ineffectual chair.
Anyone listening at NAB?
Me, me, it was me
We're definitely of the mind that if you have a forum you should use it. Life's too short to hide your light under a bushel.
Macquarie Equities' New York media man David Gibson agrees.
In a report bearing yesterday's date and off the back of a briefing to analysts by Liberty boss and major News Corp shareholder John Malone the day before, Gibson was banging his drum for all to hear.
Leading off with a quote from Malone in which the media mogul admitted he may seek to swap assets with those of the Sun King using his voting stock as currency, Gibson was taking all the credit for the news-making comments.
It was the ``first admission" from Malone, Gibson reported to clients, of such strategic thinking.
And just who do you think asked the probing questions down the line? Why Gibson, of course, with the analyst modestly featuring in his morning note only the section of the call's transcript that included his quizzing on News.
It's bonus time, after all.
I'm going home
Not quite sure the marketing department of David Murray's Commonwealth Bank got quite what it bargained for when it commissioned a survey on what Joe Bloggs considers the accoutrements of success.
Seeking how to best flog platinum credit cards to the rich and influential, the creative types pulled together a ``wealth and status report" to show just what customers considered ``benchmarks of success".
Shame the sort of things the punters came up is the stuff neither money (nor American Express) can buy.
Almost a third of respondents said ``the great Australian dream" was finding the perfect balance between work and home, while almost half thought the ``new Aussie dream" was having ``happy and financially secure children". How refreshing.
Almost everyone said they admired someone with a ``balanced lifestyle" over a ``busy executive", while 85 per cent said a good relationship was more important than a successful career.
© 2004 Sydney Morning Herald