Share price set at $2.50

The Govt has announced:

113,000 New Zealanders will become shareholders in Mighty River Power following a successful share offer, Finance Minister Bill English and State Owned Enterprises Minister Tony Ryall say.

The final price will be $2.50 per share.

Of the shares issued, 86.5 per cent will be New Zealand owned: 26.9 per cent by New Zealand retail investors, 8.6 per cent by New Zealand institutions and with the Crown retaining a majority 51 per cent shareholding. That leaves 13.5 per cent for overseas institutions.

“This is an outstanding result and fulfils our commitment to ensuring at least 85-90 per cent New Zealand ownership of the company,” Mr English says.

“The share offer will raise $1.7 billion, which is a very good return for New Zealand taxpayers. Those proceeds will go into the Future Investment Fund, allowing the Government to control debt while continuing to invest in public assets. More details will be announced in next week’s Budget.

“The Government has achieved all of its objectives for the Mighty River Power share offer, so the company will list on Friday.

“Given the strong response to the share offer, and the price we have set, Mighty River Power will have a market capitalisation of $3.5 billion.

“And with over 110,000 New Zealand shareholders, it will have the largest share register – by some margin – of any New Zealand company on the exchange.”

Mr Ryall says that due to the strong level of demand, some scaling has been necessary.

“We have decided to apply progressive scaling, which means that larger applications are scaled more than smaller ones,” Mr Ryall says.

“That means that more than 80 per cent New Zealanders will get what they applied for.”

Yay, this means I’ll get all the shares I applied for. It also means I picked up the shares for around $600 cheaper than they might have been, thanks to Labour and Greens.

I will get 2,000 shares, which is 214 more than I would have got if the price was $2.80. Assuming the real value is $2.80 if the nationalisation policy never eventuates, then those 214 bonus shares are worth $600.

68% of applicants did not have a CSN number, which implies they are first time investors. That is great, because having more people invest in capital markets is a good thing.