Is New York Mellon Corp Bank a Mum and Dad Investor?

Written By: - Date published: 11:40 am, October 31st, 2013 - 40 comments
Categories: capitalism, Economy, john key, national, Privatisation, same old national - Tags:

Asset sales Mum and dad investor

Stuff is reporting that The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation has purchased a hundred million shares in Meridian, 8% of the total shareholding.

I guess this was utterly predictable but the news still fills me with rage.  As predicted we are watching our wealth producing and strategically vital assets being sold overseas.  Stand by as the balance of payments worsens as locally generated wealth flows to overseas corporations.

And if you want to read a scathing denunciation of the asset sale process then this report is it.  The report is written by that well know radical the editor of the Dominion Post.

Some highlights:

One wonders what John Key, currency trader, would have made of the rationale of John Key, prime minister, for the failure of Solid Energy, a company valued two years ago at $1.7 billion and now dependent on the goodwill of its bankers to continue trading. If the state coalminer had been partly privatised, it probably would not be in the mess it was now in, Mr Key said yesterday.

One doubts he would have been as sanguine as his later self. More likely he would have advised his clients to have no truck with an outfit overseen with such nonchalance.

Agreed.  The real scandal here is that under this Government’s watch Solid Energy has become a cot case business.

One wonders also what John Key, currency trader, would have made of a business that floated a valuable asset during an economic downturn, received a lower return than anticipated, and then, amidst even greater uncertainty, floated an even more valuable asset.

One thing is certain. John Key, currency trader, could have told John Key, prime minister, what the outcome would be – a low price and a low take-up rate from first-time investors.

The Government’s asset sales programme has been an unmitigated disaster – so disastrous it borders on economic vandalism. Valuable assets built up over generations have been hocked off at firesale prices to a handful of investors because Mr Key’s Government could not bear to admit now was not the right time to sell. Arguing that partial private ownership is an improvement on the status quo whatever the price is fatuous.

I could not agree more.

Mr Key’s partial privatisation programme has been driven by political, not economic, imperatives. The price is being paid by everyone.

In the industry in which Mr Key made his fortune, ignorance of the bottom line is a crime for which there is only one price. He will be hoping politics is more forgiving.

This presumes of course that there is an economic justification for the share sale process.  Looking at the shambles that is developing I somehow doubt it.

Update:  It appears that BMYNC needs a new calculator.  Although its original filing with the Stock Exchange used the figure 8.12% it has now filed a subsequent document confirming the figure is 4%.  It appears it did not take into account the Government’s shares in calculating its percentage. And the Government thinks that private enterprise is smarter …

40 comments on “Is New York Mellon Corp Bank a Mum and Dad Investor? ”

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  1. fambo 1
    31 October 2013 at 11:51 am

    Our PM is a bad-assett

  2. Tat Loo (CV) 2
    31 October 2013 at 11:53 am

    $2B case against BNY Mellon for pushing the “worst price of the day” on to customers continues

    What a kleptocracy.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/06/bnymellon-nyag-lawsuit-idUSL1N0G71JN20130806

  3. aerobubble 3
    31 October 2013 at 12:02 pm

    Energy use isn’t growing, well, the only potential growth is in electric car uptake and that’ll be twenty years away (if ever).

  4. ghostwhowalksnz 4
    31 October 2013 at 12:17 pm

    The vultures circling will bring other carrion feeders in for their share !

  5. Tiger Mountain 5
    31 October 2013 at 12:19 pm

    The ring pull opener on a huge ol’ can of “told ya so” is indeed about to be ripped open.

    Mum and dad? Dumb and Mad.

  6. vto 6
    31 October 2013 at 1:07 pm

    It keeps getting worse

    What an absolute disaster

    John Key, the balls-up king

    • tc 6.1
      31 October 2013 at 1:13 pm

      It’s no balls up vto, from a US shareholders perspective this is excellent business.

      Wonder how many govt MP’s trust funds hoovered up shares to create a potential conflict of interest

      • SpaceMonkey 6.1.1
        31 October 2013 at 3:42 pm

        Agreed… John Key is meeting all his KPIs and SLAs and then some. He’s got a nice bonus waiting for when his tenure as PM is over.

  7. tc 7
    31 October 2013 at 1:11 pm

    Where have all the trolls gone with their erstwhile logic behind why this being such a great deal for NZ ! Chris 73, Wayne, Ole BB, KK come on who’s rostered on today.

    • richard 8.1
      31 October 2013 at 2:06 pm

      Doesn’t auger well for Meridian if Mellon can’t work out how much they own of it
      https://www.nzx.com/companies/MEL/announcements/243122

      • mickysavage 8.1.1
        31 October 2013 at 2:41 pm

        Yep just saw that. And I thought that those private enterprise guys were brighter and smarter?

        • alwyn 8.1.1.1
          31 October 2013 at 3:32 pm

          The announcement by Mellon is in fact accurate. It never claimed that they owned 8.12% of the shares in the company. It did say that they owned 8.12% of the shares in the class, which is the shares that are available to be owned by the public.
          It is Fairfax that then interpreted this to be 8.12% of the Company. One can’t really expect Fairfax to get anything right of course. One has only to look at their editorials to see that.

          • mickysavage 8.1.1.1.1
            31 October 2013 at 3:50 pm

            Partially but they made the disclosure thinking that they had amassed a “substantial holding”. Under section 22 of the Security Markets Act 1988 they have to make a disclosure if they accumulate more than 5% of a class of the company’s shares.

            And have a look at the Fairfax editorial above alwyn. It is one that I cannot fault …

            • alwyn 8.1.1.1.1.1
              31 October 2013 at 5:01 pm

              I suppose it depends on what you mean by a “class of shares”. If a class of shares is the instalment receipts than they probably were correct to make the announcment.

              Gosh, I have just read the editorial. You have given me evidence, at least in my view, that my statement was right. I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.

            • BLiP 8.1.1.1.1.2
              31 October 2013 at 11:17 pm

              And have a look at the Fairfax editorial above alwyn. It is one that I cannot fault …

              Allow me to explain. Rather than an “unmitigated disaster”, as the Anonymous Failfax scribe states, the privatisation of New Zealand’s essential infastructure is a whopping success for John Key and his bankster mates. Where the editorial really fails is in its distinction without a difference – John Key the money trader is exactly the same as John Key the prime minister. Throughout his entire tenure of the premiership, John Key has never acted as anything other than a money trader. Far more grievous than his looting of the public asset base, has been John Key’s money-trader attitude to democracy and human rights. New Zealand sovereign laws are, to him, as much a commodity as milk. So sure, the Failfax piece says something we’ve been saying since Labour started the process, but it fails to address the idea that John Key has never acted in the best interests of all New Zealand and has never stopped being a money trader.

  9. Will@Welly 9
    31 October 2013 at 2:01 pm

    Who said the asset sales were a balls up ? Now we can see who the real investors are – certainly not the mum and dad investors. John Key’s holiday house and knighthood just gets more attractive as each day ticks by. When Key does retire, expect him to pop up on Fox as their financial commentator.

  10. marsman 10
    31 October 2013 at 2:02 pm

    John Key and his coterie are vandals .With virtually all of their so-called policies they have managed to steal, destroy, warp and demean pieces of our country and our lives. Instead of a knighthood Key and Co need a lengthy stretch in prison, triple bunked in tiny cells, bread and water.

  11. travellerev 11
    31 October 2013 at 2:11 pm

    Ok, Here goes: I told you so, I told you so, I told you so. 😡

  12. captain hook 12
    31 October 2013 at 2:42 pm

    anyone checked the share registry yet?
    how much of it did they get.

  13. captain hook 13
    31 October 2013 at 2:43 pm

    ooooopssssss!
    8%.

  14. billbrowne 14
    31 October 2013 at 2:58 pm

    Why were retail investor’s applications scaled?

  15. One Anonymous Knucklehead 15
    31 October 2013 at 3:07 pm

    So the DomPost has decided it’s time for a change, have they? Interesting choice of word, vandalism. I don’t suppose the DomPost will be tendering any sort of apology for its complicity in this crime.

    Remind me, when vandals break my windows, do I have to pay them to make good?

    Take back our property without compensation. Make clear that it is a punitive measure designed to shock and awe future vandals. Send a clear message to the market that when you fuck with us, we fuck back.

  16. TightyRighty 16
    31 October 2013 at 3:56 pm

    who was that chinese guy / chinese government controlled corporation that purchased welllingtons (the capitals) line network in the early 2000’s?

  17. Tracey 17
    31 October 2013 at 6:29 pm

    TR

    are you saying a credible trade would have advised key to keep selling or not, I cant tell from your comment.

    aside

    I guess us banks didnt suffer for too long from the crisis of its own making

    • Tat Loo 17.1
      31 October 2013 at 6:38 pm

      I guess us banks didnt suffer for too long from the crisis of its own making

      It’s amazing what several trillion dollars of government handouts to banksters can paper over.

      Meanwhile, for those people in the US who have run out of their unemployment insurance payments – sorry, you’re fucked, there’s no money left for you.

  18. Paul 18
    31 October 2013 at 7:43 pm

    Traitor
    n.
    1. a person who betrays another, a cause, or any trust.
    2. a person who commits treason by betraying his or her country.

    Treason
    n.
    1. Violation of allegiance toward one’s country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one’s country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies.
    2. A betrayal of trust or confidence.