Airport sales in spotlight after Friday’s shares split

Eyes will be on Auckland International Airport's share price this week in its first week of split-stock trading.

Shareholders who held 400 shares in the company at the end of last week will today have 1600 shares after the one-for-four split on Friday.

The airport will have 1.2 billion shares on issue compared with the previous 303.3 million.

Investment adviser Brett Wilkinson of Direct Broking said he expected the shares to trade between $2.10 and $2.20, compared with the $8.48 closing price on Friday.

"The shares look cheap relative to where they have been, and coupled with the possibility of a capital repayment later in the year, one would expect [they] could move higher."

The airport announced the split in February as a way to ensure the company's shares "remained attractive" to the more than 50,000 smaller investors that make up about 20 per cent of the company's register. Many bought in a public float in 1998 when the Government sold its half stake.

In the past year, the company's share price has increased from $6.41 to a March 14 high of $8.67.

Wilkinson said share splits were usually driven by small New Zealand investors feeling intimidated by holding small numbers of higher priced shares, preferring a larger number of lesser-value shares.

"Australian shares trade quite heavily in excess of $20, but here it does seem to be part of the psyche that once stocks get over $10 it can affect liquidity, and there's just a perception it's expensive."

Casino company SkyCity has had two share splits. These were when the share price got close to $10 in November 2001 and 2003.

On Friday its share price closed at $4.83.

Medical appliances manufacturer Fisher and Paykel Healthcare did a one-for-five split in October.