Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Winston limbos even lower


From an increasingly paranoid and deluded Winston Peters and his blog comes the following:

One of our supporters sent this in, we thought you might like it!

 

Which of these two spent $20,000 on his teeth?

Infantile, nasty, rude and desperate stuff, just like some of the content on this site or on BarnsleyBill -David Benson Pope, and Assult with a deadly fart- but we are not running for office.

I will have a go at a comparison of my own.

What is the difference between these two men and the way they operate politically?

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0gTy5737bXfch/340x.jpg


http://geoconger.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/robert-mugabe-2.jpg

Answer?

Sadly, very little at all.


c Political Animal 2008

OneSteel makes cheeky bid for minority shareholders

Crikey mate! They are at it again.

Those cheapskate Aussies are trying to steal (pun intended) Steel and Tube [STU.NZX] off shareholders for the measly price of NZ$4 a share.

OneSteel [OST.ASX] has today launched a bid for the 49.73% of Steel and Tube they don't already own.

It has shades of the Contact Energy[CEN.NZX] takeover bid last year about it when Origin Energy attempted to buy the approximately half of Contact they didn't already own, for a knock down bargain basement price and the board of Contact, which had a number of Origin aligned directors on it approved the bid.

It wasn't until an independent report came back that the bid by Origin was seen as the highway robbery it clearly was and Origin was rightly sent packing.

I assume that OneSteel have a number of directors on the Steel and Tube board sympathetic to Origin's charms, so it doesn't take an Einstein to figure out that they will probably want to rubber stamp their parent company's bid without so much as a "hold your horses mate" (insert Australian twang here).

Apart from the cheek of the bid, it once again highlights the major gaps in New Zealand's financial regulatory and takeover laws, where a majority holder in a listed company thinks they can dupe the remaining shareholders simply because they have board control and therefore the controlling votes.

Of course this is where Steel and Tube shareholders are crucial in this scenario. If they are dumb enough to sell for 4 bucks well you just cant help some people.

Seriously though, times are tight so investors could be forgiven for folding but the company is worth more than $NZ4(at today's AU/NZ exchange rate cross only AU$3.28 )

Steel and Tube is a cyclical company. Currently the building and construction sector is experiencing a slowdown and raw materials are getting more expensive to buy to make their products. The current credit crunch and market jitters isn't helping either and as a consequence the share price is trading at multi year lows.

This will change, there will be a construction upswing, market turmoil will abate and raw steel is going drop in price.

Guess what, that means profit and the share price will rise.

OneSteel's bid is therefore very opportunistic. I don't blame them, it is a smart move.

But and it is a big but (insert OZ accent again) it is up to shareholders to have some steely resolve and and just say no to those aggressive little buggers across the ditch.

I have been an unwilling participant in a cheapskate takeover before. The Transpacific Industries [TPI.ASX] "merger" of Waste Management NZ a few years back left me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

The CEO of Transpacific made what he called a "fair bid' for an almost monopoly company that had been growing profit at 20% per annum for over 5 years and shareholders fell all over themselves to take the cash.

A made a large profit on a large number of shares but I didn't want to sell. Waste Management was going to be a good long term company in my portfolio.

As I am a small shareholder in Steel and Tube, my advice to shareholders is to hang on tight for the independent directors report on the OneSteel bid.

See what they have to say and if they approve tell OneSteel and the directors where to get off.


Steel & Tube @ Share Investor

Long Term View: Steel & Tube Ltd
NZX's Top 10 Dividend Returns

Discuss STU @ Share Investor Forum

Download STU Company Reports


Buy Toughen Up: What I've Learned About Surviving Tough Times

Toughen Up: What I've Learned About Surviving Tough Times

Toughen Up - Fishpond.co.nz



c Share Investor 2008

Monday, September 29, 2008

National to officially ditch the EFA

National announced yesterday that they are going to ditch the anti-free speech Electoral Finance Act which thousands of Kiwis protested over, including yours truly:

National Party Deputy Leader Bill English says all New Zealanders with an interest in free speech will welcome John Key's confirmation today that a National-led Government will repeal the oppressive Electoral Finance Act.

"This is a self-serving law, passed in haste, and designed to silence Labour's critics in election year.  National will end the farce."

Mr English is commenting after the release of the National Party's electoral law policy was released today. 

"The Electoral Commission and the Law Society have expressed serious reservations about the impact of the EFA on free speech and freedom of expression.  Labour has belittled these concerns.

"The Electoral Finance Act has been a total shambles and those parties who supported it are now all regretting they did so.  We do hope they embrace the chance to fix it."

National will move to repeal the Electoral Finance Act 2007 immediately after the election, but retain the provisions around the transparency of donations.

The old sections from the Electoral Act 1993 will be reinstated, and the Electoral Finance Act sections relating to donations, will be inserted into the Electoral Act 1993.

"National concluded long ago that there needed to be more transparency around donations.  We were genuinely surprised when Labour failed to put in any controls around donations when the law was initially drafted.

"We will retain those provisions from the EFA, and reform electoral law through a process that involves all parliamentary parties and the public in a fair and timely manner.

"When electoral watchdogs say they can't understand the rules, when the law society says the Act is stifling free speech, when MPs have no clear steer on what is an election advertisement – that is banana republic time.  This law should never have been passed and will be repealed by National."

A good clear policy for a confused badly drafted law.


Related Political Animal reading

Electoral Finance Act March Mar 9, 2008
Electoral Finance Bill Vote
NZ losses democratic freedom
Mike Moore turns the knife
List of MPs who voted for Act
Cartoon and comment
Auckland Protest against EFB
The purpose of the Bill is clear


To view National's electoral law summary visit: http://national.org.nz/files/2008/electoral_law.pdf

c Political Animal 2008

Labour's election bribe could be a whopper

I have written in the past about the fact that Labour are going to try and buy the election, and they will. They did it in 2005 and they will do it in 2008.


The only thing now is since Labour are so far behind National in the polls and have been consistently for well over a year, and there is an overwhelming feeling for change in the country, that vote buy is going to have to pretty bloody big.

Considering Cullen has mismanaged us into a big debt position through 9 years of wasteful spending, and there have been mutterings lately of cutbacks in cash election promises from National and Labour, one rumour that is going around-thanks Matthew Hooten for the tip off- and sounds plausible is writing off all student debt.

When I heard that of course I felt my bile forming into a future cancer because I paid off the frigging loan in full ten years ago, and so I should, I should have had to pay something for my education.

Writing off the billions owed in loans to the taxpayer of course its a nutso idea, but it would probably be a matter of an "accounting charge" on the balance sheet with no effect of the country's cash deficit, so acceptable to Cullen and politically acceptable for allot of the left voters. 

Having said that, if such an inherently silly idea is proposed by Labour there could be a backlash from people like me who have already paid their loans off and other taxpayers who think Uni students are elitist oiks whose wealthy parents should pay for their own education.