Daily ShareChat: Auckland International Airport

By Jenny Ruth

Wednesday 3rd February 2010

Auckland International Airport's retail shareholders may wish until closer to the February 18 deadline before deciding whether or not to take up their rights in its $126.4 million capital raising, says ASB Securities analyst Florian Burch.

"There is (as always) a risk that adverse or positive news between now and when the follow-up book-build takes place will impact the price achieved in the book-build, which would affect any premium payable to non-participating shareholders and the discount of the entitlement price to the market price of the shares," Burch says.

A book-build for the institutional part of the one-for-16 offer was completed on Friday at $1.91 per share compared with the $1.65 a share price offered retail shareholders. However, because 99% of institutional shareholders took up their rights, very few shares were available under the book-build.

Any rights retail shareholders choose not to exercise will be sold through a similar book-build on February 22.

Burch says the airport's trading update was broadly in line with his expectations with higher revenue and lower depreciation contributing to a 3% higher than he had expected net profit of $54 million for the six months ended December.

Burch is forecasting a $98.7 million net profit for the year ending June, down from the $109.2 million result before $67.5 million in one-off costs the airport reported last year.

Investment rating: outperform (raised from marketperform to reflect the recent fall in the share price).

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