Friday, November 30, 2007

The Warehouse in play

The decision by the High Court to grant a positive decision to the appellant's Woolworths Australia [WOW.ASX] Foodstuffs and itself will make the coming months for the company very interesting.

The High Court decision to allow Foodstuffs and Woolworths to make bids for The Warehouse Group [WHS.NZX] means it is just the beginning of a long process of a bidding war, possible legal wrangles by the Commerce Commission should they wish to appeal the High Court decision in the Appeal Court and difficulties for either Foodstuffs or Woollies to get the required 90% stake for a takeover.

Both Foodstuffs and Woollies own 10% of shares each and they require at least 90% of shareholder approval to make a takeover successful so both companies could block their rival bids. Considering founder Stephen Tindall has a 51% majority, it is definitely up to him and his family interests to sell or not should bids be made.

It is possible that the difficulties of gaining a 90% approval could be got around by organising a complicated "takeover" structure in the guise of a "merger", as was done when Transpacific Waste effectively took over Waste Management in 2005. Only 75% shareholder approval is needed in this scenario.

At today's AGM shareholders were told that the company had strong cashflow and he dropped hints at a capital return to shareholders.

"In the absence of any major acquisition opportunity, the company will consider undertaking further capital management initiatives in the 2008 calendar year," Chairman Keith Smith

Little was said about a possible takeover and the main focus was on company performance for next year which was expected to be flat.

The bulk of sales for the company are made during the November /December Christmas lead up and look to be flat as well, due to high mortgage rates and petrol prices.

The positive news out yesterday led Warehouse shares up around 24% and by 5c to NZ$6.20 today.


Disc: I own WHS shares in the Share Investor Portfolio


Warehouse Group Ltd: 2010 Full Year Profit Analysis
Share Investor Q & A: Questions to The Warehouse' Ian Morrice
Long Term View: The Warehouse Group Ltd
Share Investor Short: Warehouse Group yield worth a look
The Warehouse Group: 2010 Interim Profit Review
The Warehouse: Big Brands, Big Opportunities
Warehouse strike opportunity to buy
Long Term Play: The Warehouse Group
Share Investor Short: Warehouse Group yield worth a second look
Woolworths supermarket consolidation an indicator of a move on the Warehouse?
Stock of the Week: The Warehouse Group
Warehouse 2009 interim profit a key economic indicator
When will The Warehouse bidders make their move?
Long vs Short: The Warehouse Group
Warehouse bidders ready to lay money down
The Warehouse set to cut lose "extra" impediment
The Warehouse sale could hinge on "Extra" decision
The case for The Warehouse without a buyer
Foodstuffs take their foot off the gas
Woolworths seek leave to appeal to Supreme Court
Warehouse appeal decision imminent
Warehouse decision a loser for all
Warehouse Court of appeal decision in Commerce Commission's favour
MARKETWATCH: The Warehouse
The Warehouse takeover saga continues
Why did you buy that stock? [The Warehouse]
History of Warehouse takeover players suggest a long winding road
Court of Appeal delays Warehouse bid
The Warehouse set for turbulent 2008
The Warehouse Court of Appeal case lay in "Extras" hands
WHS Court of Appeal case could be dismissed next week
Commerce Commission impacts on the Warehouse bottom line
The Warehouse in play
Outcomes of Commerce Commission decision
The fight for control begins soonLink

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c Share Investor 2007 & 2009



Posted by Share Investor at 8:06 PM 0 comments

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Bitching and Moaning

There has been some moaning and bitching about this piece that I wrote on Political Animal and my Share Investor Blog regarding the conflict that Jeanette Fitzsimons and the Labour Government have over their championing of Windflow Technologies and a shareholding that Jeanette has in the company and her involvement in changing laws and stopping normal economic development to favour Windflow Tech.

I have been told by an anonymous individual and by someone else that calls herself Jeanette Fitzsimons that Fitzsimons no longer has shares in the company. Neither of these two persons were able to furnish any proof of such a statement.

I searched high and low to find any information to the contrary but common information from all sources on the net lead me to the same conclusion. My main source was from the Greens' Website.

Does Jeanette, a family trust or her family members own Windflow Tech shares? You would have to ask yourself this question considering her involvement in putting the brakes on oil, gas, hydro and coal energy and financially penalising those industries through her actions and those of her partner in Government, the Labour Party.

An interesting speech from Deborah Coddington related to the pecuniary interests of members of Parliament where she discusses some of the points that I have covered here and incidentally another source of little Jeanette's shareholding in Windflow Tech.


Coddington, Deborah, Standing Orders

2nd August 2005

[Volume:627;Page:22361]

DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) : I rise on behalf of the ACT party to oppose Government motion No. 3, which relates to the pecuniary interests of members of Parliament. What is the problem that this is trying to fix? All this will do is be a burden for the honest, who will agonise over it. It is so complicated and so badly drawn up that it is very difficult to see where to begin and where to end. It will build a climate of dishonesty. The crooks, who do not give a stuff, will just make it up anyway—and who will have the time and energy to trawl through everything and find out whether members have been honest? It is like taking the rich list at face value. The rich list does not even take into account people’s liabilities. All it can do is take into account their assets. The poor, diligent, honest MP who struggles to declare everything under this measure will possibly trip up, or by accident exclude something, and the media will pick it up, have a field day, and destroy him or her for no reason at all.

This measure would not have caught Donna Awatere Huata. We asked her time and again whether she had any interest, any personal gain, and she lied to us. She would not tell us the truth. It would not have picked her up. If this Parliament really wants to get down on corruption, why does it not take note of what Ian Ewen-Street said yesterday when he talked about the scampi inquiry and Mr Peters’ involvement with Simunovich Fisheries? That has never been fully explored. For instance, provision 4(1)(b) in new appendix B states: “the name of every other company or business entity in which the member has a pecuniary interest …”. Is that direct or indirect? What if a member had shares in something like the New Zealand Investment Trust? That is a very respectable trust. If a member had shares in it, he or she would not have a clue about all the things that trust does. How on earth would one list them? How would trusts like that be listed? Land holdings are mentioned further on in this measure. If we tried to get information from members on all the land and property they own they would probably tell us to go away and mind our own business.

I was very interested in what Rod Donald, the co-leader of the Greens, said. A moment ago he said that the Green Party stood for high standards and that it was the cleanest party in Parliament. They would have no trouble declaring their pecuniary interests. Why does Rod Donald not start by reading what we already have under Standing Order 164, which states: “A pecuniary interest is a direct financial benefit that might accrue … as a result of the outcome of the House’s consideration of a particular item of business.” The Greens have a particular interest in high electricity prices. They opposed Project Aqua. They oppose any energy projects. Why is that? Because it is in their pecuniary interests to have high electricity prices, because of their financial interests, through their taxpayer-funded superannuation fund, in establishing the commercial viability of wind energy. They should tell us these things. If they do not tell us these things we have to go into Google to find them out. This statement is from a press release in May 2001: “the Green Party’s Superannuation Fund have joined the growing list of investors in local wind power company Windflow Technology. Windflow director … said ‘We’re delighted that the Greens are going to be part of our company. Windflow Technology is both environmentally and investor friendly,’ … Rod Donald, said ‘Our superannuation fund has a policy of ethical investing.’” Why do they not declare that when they come into this House to argue against any power project or development that anyone cares to put up, whether it be State-owned, or, heaven help us, one of the few private ones? Not only that, Jeanette Fitzsimons owns 30,000 shares in the Green Party superannuation fund. She is one of the top 10 shareholders. One of the biggest shareholders is UK millionaire, Sir James Goldsmith, and US billionaire Delane Wyeross also owns shares.

But they have directly benefited also from carbon credits. A subsidiary of Windflow Technology, New Zealand Windfarms, won Government backing of up to $10 million to set up a 60-turbine wind farm in the Manawatū. This was in December 2003. Members should listen to what the business development manager—[Interruption] It is not a scandal at all. I never said it was a scandal. I am just pointing out the—we are not allowed to use that word, but the term “conflict of interest” perhaps is a way to describe it when one stands up in this House and says that everyone has to declare their pecuniary interests, and everyone has to declare how much money they are owed over $50,000, and any debt over $50,000. I do not see the point in that. Why have it declared that someone owes a member of Parliament $50,000 or more?

Members will not have to declare it if it relates to a spouse, a partner, children, step-children, or foster children, so the dishonest ones will put all these things in the name of their spouses, partners, children, step-children, or foster children and get them to pay them. The very thing that should be declared, and the very thing we should be most suspicious of—that is, electoral campaign expenses that could be covered up—is excluded. The very thing we should be suspicious of—where someone wants to try to buy one’s vote—is the only thing that we should be declaring, and it is excluded.

But I go back to this Greens’ thing. The business development manager of the wind farm said that it would not have been viable without the Government’s award of carbon credits. It was one of the two firms named by the Minister of Energy, Pete Hodgson, to take a share of 4 million carbon credits designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions. I think the public should know these things. The public should know that the Greens stand up in this House and accuse every other party, except Labour, of being dishonest and bordering on the corrupt, yet the co-leader of the Greens did not declare all of these things, which anyone can get on the website. The Greens are strangely silent whenever anyone brings the matter up, and it is an example of how this legislation is just a nonsense. There is no problem here that we have to fix. In general, most people who come into this place are honest. If they are not, then the media are not doing their job properly, because it is the job of the fourth estate to find out what is going on and report it accurately. ACT will not be supporting this motion.


C Political Animal 2007



Posted by Share Investor at 4:46 PM 0 comments

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Thursday, November 29, 2007

15 year old Kristen Byrne's take on "Global Warming"



A message for all our dopey politicians about New Zealand's moronic march towards self imposed economic disaster in the form of bending over to global warming, carbon footprints, Kyoto and Al Gore's growing bank balance.

The Left and the Greens especially, have us on a path, to NZ before the wheel was invented.

In case you haven't found it yet, let me recommend 15 year old Kristen Byrne's insightful website, Ponder the Maunder that puts all the GW bullshit into perspective.

Ponder the Maunder was an extra credit project for Honors Earth Science, Portland High School, by Kristen Byrnes of Portland Maine.

This report is a comprehensive look at the global warming issue without financial or political bias. It uses the most updated information provided by scientists and researchers and interjects common sense, an important component missing from the global warming debate.
Related 

Teenage Skeptic Takes on Climate Scientists : NPR

c Political Animal 2007

Posted by Share Investor at 9:17 PM 0 comments

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The Carbon Fairy has no clothes on

In what is clearly gearing up to be one of history's greatest financial explosions and implosion when it all inevitably collapses, is news today that the carbon trading "market" tripled in size to US$30 Billion last year.

With this market built on failed "science", lies and spruiking by the likes of wealthy green investors Al Gore and Leonardo Di Caprio, like all markets built on such flimsy backgrounds the money made, and there will be billions, will be made by those that get on the greenwagon first:

Since co-founding Climate Change Capital in 2003, James Cameron and his business partner Mark Woodall have turned their company into a powerhouse in the burgeoning global market in greenhouse gases. Driven by the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, an accord Cameron helped write, this corner of the derivatives arena is growing as never before.


Clearly, Cameron and Woodall are smart cookies but these self interested scam artists, who have written their own rules and now profit from them by "investing" other peoples hard earned cash into worthless carbon credits will be the first to withdraw their own funds when the climate change hysteria is revealed for what it is, that the sun simply getting hotter.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/content/images/2007/02/02/carbon_footprint_400_03_400x300.jpg
A Carbon footprint recently traded on Ebay for
US$1 Million.

I am old enough to remember similar things happening during the dot com era where mum and dad investors piled into worthless "businesses" and the big boys got out first before the truth about the bulk of silicon valley Internet companies hit the investment fan.

The same thing is going to happen with the carbon trading market.


Related Share Investor Reading

Rod Oram: On the Prius to Obscurity
Another reason to ignore Rod Oram
Rob Fyfe's "Environmental Extremism"
Carbon Credit Trading puts markets at extreme risk
Mark Weldon Strikes out on Carbon Trading
Quote of the year
Of Tulip bulbs and Tooth fairies
Global warning: Tax iceberg ahead
Mark Weldon in two minds about carbon trading

Related links

Kristen Byrne: Ponder the Maunder - a 15 year old schoolgirl debunks climate change myth

From Amazon


Global Warming and Other Eco Myths: How the Environmental Movement Uses False Science to Scare Us to DeathGlobal Warming and Other Eco Myths: How the Environmental Movement Uses False Science to Scare Us to Death by Competitive Enterprise Institute
Buy used from: $3.77




c Share Investor 2007


Posted by Share Investor at 10:13 AM 0 comments

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