Myer Prospectus Released

Here is the latest update on the initial public offering of Myer shares.

Today the prospectus was made available for download on the Myer website. I have downloaded it and had a quick scan through.

One thing that struck me is that there is no application form. As far as I can tell, retail investors have 3 options to invest in the float:

• as a staff member of Myer;
• as a member of the loyalty card program; or
• through an allocation from a stock broker.

If you don't fall into one of these categories, the prospectus says that you will be eligible if you're a member of Myer One loyalty card program on 23 October 2009. I guess that means you still have time to become a member.

The offer will be priced between $3.90 and $4.90 per share with the final price to be set upon completion of the institutional offer.

It seems that demand will probably be strong as I read in The Age today that 140,000 investors have pre-registered their interest in the share offer.

Myer Float - How To Buy Shares In The Myer IPO

Since my post yesterday on the IPO of Myer shares, I've had a couple of questions about how investors can get access to the float. As I mentioned yesterday, the strong brand name will probably attract lots of retail investors to the float and I guess people are worried about missing out.

According to the offer website, as long as you become a Myer One member by 5:00 pm on Friday 25 September, you will be eligible to preregister and have your prospectus mailed to you along with a personalized application form.

But I also read in the FAQ that you will not receive any priority by preregistering.

"If you apply for shares under the Myer Share Offer, you will be treated the same whether or not you have pre-registered."

So there appears to be no reason to panic just yet. Although there has been speculation that preferential treatment would be given to loyalty card holders, the information in the FAQ does seem to contradict this.

If you're worried about missing out, maybe the safest bet is to join up to the loyalty card program before Friday. That way you'll be covered if investors who preregister their interest in the IPO do receive preferential treatment in the Myer float.

Myer Shares Set To Float

It looks like Myer shares will once again be available on the Australian stock market. The Myer IPO (Initial Public Offering) could well be wrapped up by the end of the year.

According to the www.mypieceofmyer.com.au website, the group "currently intends to lodge a prospectus with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for the offering of shares in Myer Holdings Limited on or about 28 September 2009".

With the ASX indices racing ahead over the past few months, it may well be an opportune time for the float, providing the Aussie sharemarket doesn't fall over in the next month or two. We've managed to get through the 1st anniversary of the GFC, but October has been a diabolical month for investors in years gone by - although not so much in recent years.

Pre-registration for the Myer float is only available to the company's staff and for Myer One loyalty card members.

The TPG (Texas Pacific Group) led private equity consortium took the iconic retailer private just over 3 years ago. Since then they have managed to increase profits and (not surprisingly) management say that recent trading has been strong.

The interesting thing for me will be the structure of the new listed entity's balance sheet - or more specifically, how much debt it carries. The modus operandi in most private equity deals is the use a lot of leverage (debt) in the buyout. Sometimes when the shares are floated they still carry a significant level of debt. Repco is one of those situations which comes to mind. The cyclic nature of retailing along with excessive debt can be a risky combination.

I suspect that the issue will still be popular though. It is a well known brand which along with some heavy marketing aimed at retail investors should ensure the Myer share float is successful.

Exchange Traded Funds - ETF Investing In Australia

My interest in Exchange Traded Funds has grown since I first wrote about asset allocation a few months ago. As you may recall from that post, I like the strategy as a way of diversifying away from Australian shares and as a way of making the investment process more objective and systematic. Anyway, this line of reasoning caused me to search for a cost effective and relatively simple way of implementing a fairly basic asset allocation - and the humble ETF fits the bill. 

What Are Exchange Traded Funds?

An ETF is an open ended fund which trades on the stock exchange (open-ended means that the fund can issue or redeem shares at any time). Most of the ETFs I've looked at are designed to track the price of a particular index. They are similar to shares in that you can buy and sell them through your normal stock broker. The only cost you need to pay is brokerage. Another way in which they are like shares is that they pay distributions in a similar way to which shares pay dividends. 

Best Shares To Buy Now For The Long Term

Many investors will be feeling bruised and battered after a year or two of punishing stock market conditions. Even those who don't purchase shares directly will be feeling the pain. Superannuation returns have plummeted and most managed funds have gone backwards as well. So how do we as investors go about finding the best shares to buy now that stock prices seem to have stabilised?

In this post I'd like to describe some of the criteria I look at when investing. With share prices cheaper than they've been in years (although not as cheap as they were in March) I think now is a good time to buy shares provided they are as a long term investment in a quality business.

Value Investing Podcast - The Value Guys

Who said value investing has to be boring?

If you're a stock market investor with a bias towards buying value, then The Value Guys podcast might be right up your alley. Although it's a sometimes light-hearted discussion of stock investments, the principles these guys apply when analyzing a potential investment are well worth listening to.

The two protagonists on this weekly podcast go by the names of Val Hughes and Vern Value (they're at pains to point out that thee names are not real). In each episode Vern and Val pick 3 stocks each which they think may be undervalued and put forward their arguments as to why this might be the case.

Although The Value Guys mainly discuss American stocks, those of us investing in the Australian stock market will still get something out of it. As I mentioned earlier, I find it interesting to listen to the way they approach valuing these companies. And they're entertaining as well.

You might also be interested on the Australian Stock Exchange podcasts and the Gannon On Investing podcasts.

Buying International Shares

Should Australian's buy overseas shares as part of a balanced investment portfolio?

The Australian stock market is a very small portion of the overall investment universe - less than two percent, depending upon who you listen to. So today I'm going to explore why you might like to consider investing in international shares as well as a discussing some of the options.

The reason I started thinking about this was that I was recently reading about an investment concept known as asset allocation. The idea behind asset allocation is that you spread your investments across different assets classes with different risk profiles and for which returns are not always correlated. One of the asset classes suggested by many financial planners and other investment professionals is international shares.