From the Share Investor Blog today, in a unsurprising and but naked grab for votes in this 2008 election year, 50000 voters have just had their property rights trampled on because the Auckland Airport Merger with the Canadian Pension Plan Investment board has been turned down.
David Parker, Minister of a ship of
Fools.
Watch for the Poodle Party and its titular head Winston Peters come out waving the New Zealand Flag today. Its hard to keep a straight face though when he supports a government that has signed a "free trade" deal with China.
The politics of envy is alive and well in socialist, communist Aotearoa.
State Services Minister David Parker and Associate Finance Minister Clayton Cosgrove have vetoed the sale of Auckland International Airport[AIA]
After over a year of negotiations by two prospective parties, The Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board and Dubai Aeronautical Enterprise, all the time money and expertise that has gone into brokering a deal has been reduced to an international farce by the stroke of a socialist government pen.
The intervention has come at a time when markets are shaky and the economy is on a downturn and this added uncertainty has disappointed the market again and the 50000 odd voting age Mums and Dads who voted overwhelmingly in March to allow the CPPIB to buy their shares.
It is not hard to imagine what the CPPIB next move might be, but they have 3 options. Walk away completely, walk away while making a financial claim against the New Zealand Government, for their costs involved in axing a deal by retrospectively changing an overseas investment law, or push on in the courts to allow them to seal the deal.
The Auckland Airport would also have a claim for the millions of dollars of costs incurred for its shareholders because of the retrospective law.
NZ Herald's Auckland Airport merger coverage to date
The Battle for the Airport
Share Investor merger coverage to date
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?
Disclosure: I own AIA shares
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