Float activity was down on previous years as well, as measured by either the number of new issues or by the aggregate amount of capital raised. But this was to be expected. With the All Ordinaries down 43% for the year and panic stricken investors heading for the exits at the first sign of trouble only the very brave or very needy chanced their arm with an IPO. I suspect most executives who had intentions to float in 2008 would have delayed their plans until a calmer mood prevailed over world stock markets.
Measured by the number of new company floats, 2008 was a poor year, with only 72 new listings. This is the lowest since 2002 and is a far cry from the peak in 2007 of 242 new company floats. Also, only 2 billion dollars was raised last year - once again well behind the 9.7 billion dollar figure for 2007.
Of the 72 floats, only 2 finished with their heads above water.
- Phosphate Australia (ASX:POZ) finished the year at 44 cents after listing in July at an issue price of 20 cents - an impressive 120% gain.
- Heartware (ASX:HIN) finished up 20% at 60 cents after an Initial Public Offering at 50 cents in November.
An honorable mention should go to Tiaro Coal who have managed to break even by finishing the year at 20 cents - the same as the issue price back in March when the Australian Stock Exchange was first graced with it's presence.
After that it gets ugly. More than two thirds of new listings finished the year at less than 40% of their original issue price. The companies floated were mostly small with lots of mining and exploration plays amongst them. But there is one exception...
BrisConnections floated at the end of July at an issue price of $1.00. Since then it has plummeted like a stone to 0.1 cents - not $0.10, but $0.001 or a tenth of a cent. The company plans to construct a toll road in Brisbane connecting the Airport to some other stuff (I don't know the geography of Brisbane very well). I believe there are lots of tunnels involved.
BrisConnections has so far raised $400M out of its total $1.2B - and this is where it gets interesting. You see the shares (stapled securities to be more accurate) were issued on a partly paid basis with 2 further installments due (each of $1.00) over the next couple of years. This means the the purchase of each one of these securities at the knock down, bargain basement price of $0.001 buys you the obligation to stump up another $2.00 down the track.
I can almost hear your brain ticking over as you ponder that one. Let's say you have a lazy $500 to 'invest'. At the going rate of a tenth of one cent per security, your 500 dollars (plus brokerage of course) will buy you 500,000 of these little beauties. "Not bad!", you say. Then you do the maths and work out that over the next 2 years you'll need to fork out an additional 1 million dollars - that's $1,000,000 - to make the installment payments.
And just to make sure you are in no doubt as to your legal requirement in this matter, the kind folks at BrisConnections sent out a letter to shareholders early last month reminding shareholders of their obligation to make the installment payments. In the letter, they stated that "BrisConnections will take a vigorous approach to collecting any such outstanding payments."
Finally, I should point out that, despite the tone of this article, I don't mean to imply that all of the floats to hit the Australian stock market in 2008 were of poor quality, although I suspect some of them may well have been. Value investors would know that a fall in price does not necessarily mean the company is no good. On the contrary, value investors may well want to pick through the carnage of last year's IPOs to see if there are any hidden gems which may be worthly of closer inspection.
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