Is another Auckland Airport bid likely under a business friendly Government?

Update: Read January 2012 rumour about Airport takeover 

Is Auckland International Airport set for M & A activity?

Its time for some not so idle speculation.

With the new National Government in place and the current relaxing of the rules around the RMA, the major planning law that has stopped economic development of New Zealand, we could expect to see developments in other areas of business in regards to relaxing laws and legislation to allow business to flow quicker and therefore more efficiently and more profitably.

A case in point that I would like to regurgitate is the fiasco that ended last year when it was vetoed by the then Labour administration, after over a year of political wrangling, the Auckland International Airport [AIA.NZ] sale saga.

Two suitors were vying for a slice of New Zealand's largest airport, first Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE), then the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).

Both these bids eventually failed.

Both DAE and CPPIB were knocked back for no other than petty political reasons.

After these two bids failed Lloyd Morrison, through his company Infratil [IFT.NZ] and a partnership with the NZ Super Fund, accumulated around 9% of AIA.

Morrison also owns a majority stake in Wellington Airport and was behind a failed proposal to build a second airport in Auckland.

The thing is, since the relaxing of relevant business legislation one might expect the National Government's attitude to allowing private enterprise to do business freely, therefore opening up the possibility of another bid for the Airport-either by one or both of the spurned suitors or from Infratil.

The only impediment is the obvious funding problems now that credit is difficult to obtain.

However, The one most likely to bid would be DAE, because it is backed by massive oil derived financial backing and because Auckland Airport would be strategic to its global plans to expand its infrastructure.

It is interesting to speculate and this scenario isn't that far fetched.

AIA shares have added around 10% over the last few weeks.


Disclosure: I own AIA shares

AIA @ Share Investor

Is Auckland International Airport set for M & A activity?
Share Investor Q & A: Auckland Airport's Simon Moutter
Auckland Council look set for a Auckland Airport Takeover
Auckland City Council new AIA Policy Doc
Make me an offer I cant refuse: Auckland International Airport Ltd
Long Term View: Auckland International Airport
VIDEO - Simon Moutter on Australian Airport Purchase
Auckland Airport Capital Raising a fair call
Auckland International Airport lands Australian Ports
What Infratil sale of Auckland Airport stake means
Is another Auckland Airport bid likely under a business friendly Government?
Latest Airport coverage
Cullen's move on Auckland Airport has far reaching effects
Cullen's move on AIA tax plan Anti-Business
AIA profit stays grounded
Softening opposition to CPPIB bid for AIA
Directors of AIA bribe brokers not to sell
What is Auckland Airport worth to you?
Second bite at AIA by CPPIB might just fly
AIA new directors must focus on shareholders
Auckland Airport merger deal nosedives
The Canadians have landed
AIA incentive scheme must fly out the window
Government market manipulation over AIA/DAE deal
DAE move on AIA: Will it fly?


Queenstown Airport Buyout @ Share Investor

Queenstown Airport: Queenstown Airport Update
Auckland Airport CEO on Queenstown Airport Fracas
Queenstown Airport: Court Case looks set to Drag
Queenstown Airport: Loud Voices & Loyalty
Queenstown Airport: Air New Zealand's Crocodile Tears
Queenstown Airport: AIA purchase good Long-Term but will cost shareholders Short-Term

Discuss this Stock @ Share Investor Forum - Register free
Download AIA Company Reports

Think Bigger: How to Raise Your Expectations and Achieve Everything
By Michael Hill

c Share Investor 2009

Piece by piece, Nanny State is being dismantled

The removal by National of the Labour Party requirement for schools to be the food police is poetry to the ears and sending exactly the right message to pupils, teachers and parents.

Hopefully it is just the beginning of the end for the nanny state Labour so carefully engineered for us over the last 9 years.

It is the right and responsibility of the parents to give their children the right food, not lefty pollies, some of whom are too fat to move, let alone rub two braincells together in order to figure out that they are not surrogate parents to every man woman and child in our country.

This is the kind of warped thinking that the left specialise in: piece

Ms Kedgley said that arguing the children would still buy the products elsewhere was "a nonsense".

"Teenagers can buy cigarettes at the local dairy, but that doesn't mean we should allow them to sell them at school. NZ Herald.co.nz

A pie is hardly a cigarette Sue.

Bugger off, crawl into a sow crate and look after your own family, mine is fine.

Related Amazon Reading

Socialism In Russia: Lenin and His Legacy, 1890-1991 by John Gooding  Buy new: $37.95 / Used from: $1.85 Usually ships in 24 hours

Labour's Legacy Lingers like a Lefty Leper

From the 2 billion in the hole that they left the ACC in, toady's power cuts -and more to come -from under investing in infrastructure, profligate spending by Government departments, tortured dead babies and a whole host of other crimes and not so mis-demeanour's, they just keep re-surfacing like that bad smell in the car that you just cant find.

Their regular law-breaking is another story.

Labour's mistakes are set to haunt us for a while yet.

While we haven't yet seen the worst of their last nine years surface, moves by the National Government so far have been in a good positive direction and will return some commonsense and positive direction for New Zealanders.

National Ministers who have already cut back on wasteful spending, administered failing schools and sacked useless health mangers have done well and sent the right message to the public-we ain't gonna waste your money-lets hope they continue.

Nice change.

Part of the stimulus package out today that gives tax breaks for business and yesterdays relaxing of the officious RMA law (a law that stopped power sector development) are a good start.

More careful planning is being done to tackle the current global recession and the economic mess that Labour left behind and calls by Phil Goff to spin meaningless rushed babble in the media to calm the masses is highly irresponsible-remember loose Labour talk on Telecom and Auckland Airport losing stockholders money?

Economic policy at this time must be planned well and targeted in the right way.

Spraying taxpayer cash around hoping that some of it sticks is no longer an option.

The rescue package rushed through Congress last year didn't work because it wasn't thought through carefully.

National is moving fast to obliterate the last 9 years of waste, lies, criminal behavior and plain arrogance and I have never seen a government move so rapidly before.

Lets hope they can make Labours last 3 terms a distant memory.

Good on ya Johnny.

Related Amazon Reading 

Conquering Nature: The Enviromental Legacy of Socialism in Cuba (Pitt Latin Amercian Studies) by Sergio Diaz-Briquets  Buy used from: $13.99

c Political Animal 2009

Mark Weldon now in two minds about Carbon Trading

The announcement last week by Mark Weldon, CEO of the NZX, that they are going to sell their flash new carbon trading registry business TZ1 Registry to Markit, a global financial information services company, leaves the financial world more than just a little perplexed.

Mark has been banging on about his registry and how much potential for business and I guess profit that this new registry will have.

Then why sell the golden goose?

That is where Weldon either becomes the cleverest man in the world for flogging off this dead horse to a poor sucker, in this case Markit, or the biggest hypocrite New Zealand business has ever seen for turning his back on a growth opportunity akin to the second coming of the tulip bulb craze of the 1600s.

Most sensible people know that this carbon trading lark is based on a lie and eventually it will all come crashing down on itself and that is where Mark becomes a clever little bastard-ditching a no-hoper before it becomes a worthless millstone .

Payment will be made in Markit shares, currently worth around $NZ 60 million, so unfortunately this exposes the NZX to losses further down the line when carbon trading fails.

Lets hope Mark will be smart enough to see that coming and jump ship before that happens.

Mark Weldon's hypocrisy is clearly evident because he has fully backed this TZ1 carbon trading venture with all the rhetoric, pomp and circumstance and the so-called "science" that backs it up and is now leaving the registry services part of it behind.

NZX is left with the relatively insignificant TZ1 carbon trading division.

Prospective and current investors in the New Zealand Stock Exchange [NZX.NZ] will be left wondering, does Mark Weldon believe in the carbon trading business or is he just taking advantage of the ignorant and blind?

Lets hope it is the latter.


Related Share Investor Reading

Mark Weldon Strikes out on Carbon Trading
Quote of the year
Of Tulip bulbs and Tooth fairies
Global warning: Tax iceberg ahead
Carbon Credit trading puts global markets at extreme risk

Related links

TZ1 Market
Kristen Byrne - 15 year old schoolgirl debunks climate change myth

NZX financial data

• Summary
• Charts
• Dividends
• News
• Announcements
• Price History
• Related Securities

Related Amazon Material

The Great Global Warming Swindle (DVD) Buy new: $14.99 / Used from: $15.99 Usually ships in 24 hours

c Share Investor 2009