Forum Archive Index - May 2001

[Peter Hansen <peter.hansen@access-brokerage.co.nz>]

This story from Dow Jones sums up the state of play:

  WELLINGTON (Dow Jones)--EME Pacific Holdings, a unit of Edison 
International Ltd. (EIX), has succeeded in acquiring 21.5 million shares, 
or about 3.7%, in       energy generator and retail concern Contact Energy Ltd. 
(A.CNT), through an on-market stand Tuesday, a stock exchange official 
said.   
  The successful completion follows a separate purchase of 21.5 million 
shares  
of Contact by EME Pacific in an off-market transaction  overnight.      
  Both of these transactions now raise Edison's 42.7% stake in Contact by 
about   
7.4% to around 50.1%.   
  The exchange official said that the final calculations for the on-market      
transactions, which were carried out through a board separate from that of 
the     
main board, haven't been completed.     
  "There are some scalings to be done as a few transactions appear to have      
exceeded the cap of 5,000 shares...so these (purchases) are treated as  
provisional," she said. 
   On Monday, Edison said a cap of 5,000 shares per individual vendor   
shareholder will apply until the shares have been acquired or until EME 
Pacific 
determines otherwise.   
  The transactions were completed at NZ$3.10 a Contact share, a premium of 
5.8%    
to the target company's closing price at NZ$2.93 on Monday.     

   In its April notice to the stock exchange, EME Pacific announced its 
intention to raise its stake in the New Zealand energy generator and 
retail  
concern by up to another 8.5% by purchasing about 49 million Contact 
Energy  
shares at a price set between NZ$2.90 and NZ$3.25 a Contact share       
  EME Pacific said conditions for the purchase include Contact Energy not       
issuing new ordinary shares, and EME acquiring at least 43 million shares 
in      
Contact.        
  EME didn't say if it would bid for the extra shares after Tuesday's 
on-market       
stand. Another 8.5% will raise EME's stake to 51.16% of Contact Energy's        
ordinary shares, which excludes the ordinary shares repurchased by Contact 
and     
held by it as treasury stock.   
  By 2344 GMT, Contact Energy shares are down 9 cents, or 3.1%,  at 
NZ$2.84.        
Some brokers say the slide in Contact's price reflected investor 
perceptions the 
stock had hit its high-end with the Edison offer.       
  But a Credit Suisse First Boston broker - one of two brokerages acting 
for EME 
Pacific - said the decline in the share price was the result of some 
 selling of     
parcels larger than 5,000 shares, which was above the maximum limit Edison 
was     
accepting, which is targeted at Contact's several thousand small 
shareholders    
  -By Shri Navaratnam, Dow Jones Newswires; 64-4-801-8960;      
shri.navaratnam@dowjones.com    



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.sharechat.co.nz/          New Zealand's home for market investors
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To remove yourself from this list, please use the form at
http://www.sharechat.co.nz/forum.shtml.