Big Deals

As Tattersall’s (TTS) and Tabcorp (TAB) squabble over who would make a better suitor for UNiTAB (UTB), Deutsche Bank has been making some quiet moves on the belle of the ball. On August 2, Deutsche announced to the ASX that it had acquired 5.2% or 6.5 million shares in the Queensland-based totalisator and gaming machine operator. Over the past week alone, Deutsche has acquired about a million shares at a cost of approximately $14 million. It appears that Deutsche believes UNiTAB’s future is rosy, whoever wins its hand.
As pure infrastructure funds go off the boil, Queensland Investment Corporation and Barclays Global Investors Australia Corporation have identified Macquarie Infrastructure Communications Group (MCG) as undervalued. Queensland Investment Corporation announced to the ASX on July 31 that it had bought nine million shares in the broadcasting infrastructure company, taking its total holding to 21 million shares or 5.4% in a transaction worth about $53 million. The following day, August 1, Barclays Global Investors Australia Group announced that it had also been acquiring shares in MCG, paying $136 million to buy about 24 million shares, 6% of the company.

Barclay’s Global Investors Australia Group has followed the example set by other fund managers by announcing on August 1 that it was getting out of Ansell (ANN). Ansell began a long descent on April 5, sliding from $11.95 all the way down to $8.38 on July 4. Barclays sold a little more than a million shares in Ansell for about $9 million. At the same time, Perennial Value Management is taking the contrarian position. Expecting that the worst has passed, Perennial has built a substantial stake in Ansell over a two week period, buying 7.7 million shares, or 5.08% of the company, for $64 million.

In another interesting play, Perennial announced on August 3 that it is getting out of the travel booking company Flight Centre (FLT). Flight Centre has been a real disappointment to investors over the past two years and has only recently begun to recover. Despite this, Perennial is reducing its holding by selling a million shares for about $12 million. Separately, UBS Nominees is increasing its stake in rival company Webjet (WEB). On July 28, UBS announced it was increasing its holding in Webjet from 7.2 to 8.5% at a cost of $1.3 million.

Voting with its feet, Lazard Asset Management Pacific has called the bottom for Metcash (MTS) and James Hardie (JHX). Both stocks have been on the skids since earlier this year with Metcash sliding by about 12% and James Hardie by about 30%. However, the analysts at Lazard must think that things are on the up because on August 1 it reported it had invested $30 million into Metcash and $37 million in James Hardie.

Perhaps anticipating today’s horrific net loss of $355 million for the year to June 30 and $155 million for the last quarter at Telecom New Zealand (TEL), ING New Zealand announced to the exchange on August 3 that it had been offloading stock in the last three weeks of the financial year. ING New Zealand sold 34 million shares on market at an average price of $3.35, recouping $116 million in the process. ING New Zealand now holds less than 5% of Telecom New Zealand as is no longer considered a substantial shareholder.

In what must be interpreted as a win for the speculative mining fraternity, Macquarie Bank has purchased 5 million shares in Discovery Nickel (DNL). The purchase was made for 1.1 million and represents 6% of the micro-cap nickel exploration company, which the market has valued at $21 million.

In director’s trades, the team behind construction and project managers Watpac (WTP) have made some substantial purchases in their own company after a recent rights issue. Between them, the managing director, deputy chairman and a non-executive director made purchases totaling about $1 million. It’s also worth mentioning that former Lord Mayor and Brisbane identity, Clem Jones took advantage of the issue to increase his holding to about 6% of the company, or a total holding of 7.6 million shares.