ACC buys bulk of Utilico's Infratil share sale

ACC buys bulk of Utilico's Infratil share sale

By Paul McBeth

Jan. 16 (BusinessDesk) - The Accident Compensation Corp's investment arm, which manages $26.96 billion of assets to help fund the state-owned workplace insurer, lifted its stake in infrastructure investor Infratil, buying most of the shares sold by UK investment house Utilico Investments earlier this week.

ACC bought 7.36 million shares for about $21.8 million on Jan. 14, taking its stake in Infratil to 11.3 percent, and cementing its spot as the company's biggest shareholder, according to documents lodged with the stock exchange. Infratil counted 15,592 investors on its share register as at May 19. The 90-day average trading volume in Infratil shares is about 770,000.

Utilico, which has long had an association with Infratil and is managed by Infratil director Duncan Saville, sold 10.4 million shares at $2.95 apiece for a total $30.7 million, continuing a sell-down that started in 2010 when it owned almost a fifth of the company.

In October, JML Capital, an entity related to HRL Morrison & Co chief investment officer Lib Petagna, sold 3 million shares on market, reaping $8.43 million, according to a notice to the stock exchange at the time. JML held 11.42 million shares as at May 19, or 1.95 percent of the company, according to Infratil’s annual report.

Shares of Infratil gained 0.7 percent to $3.01 today, and climbed 30 percent over the past 12 months. The stock is rated an average 'buy' based on six analyst recommendations compiled by Reuters, with a median target price of $3.27.

Last month the investment firm teamed up with the New Zealand Superannuation Fund to buy Australia's fourth-biggest retirement village operator RetireAustralia for A$640.2 million.

(BusinessDesk)

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