KEY POINTS:
The wealthiest sharemarket investors have taken a bath in the past three months, losing money on the market at a time when it was still rising.
The NZX index gained 1.8 per cent in the three months to May but the portfolios of the richest investors fell 1.2 per cent, says Investment Research Group (IRG) of Auckland.
The country's richest family - the Todds - suffered the biggest loss. Their $283 million portfolio dropped $11.7 million in the quarter in a move IRG attributed to the Freeview digital television launch threatening Sky Network Television's position.
One of the biggest winners was Sky founder Craig Heatley, whose porfolio grew by $647,000. IRG attributed his win to the good fortunes of infrastructure investor Infratil.
But when it came to fish, Heatley got wet.
"Not so good has been Heatley's investment in the fishing company Sanford, which Heatley topped up with a second tranche of 166,000 shares. The share has been up and down over the past quarter and is currently down on concerns of the local currency being too strong for Sanford's good."
Wealthy investor Hugh Green suffered from his investment in Hellaby, IRG said, although he had made a fortune buying this stock over the years.
The portfolio of Selwyn Cushing and his son David recorded the biggest gain, up $4.9 million to more than $50 million.
Former Montana chief Peter Masfen has also done well lately.
"It's been a mixed quarter for Peter Masfen's $201 million portfolio with big gains in some shares offset by big falls elsewhere and overall the portfolio is up marginally by $594,000."
The setback suffered by the smart money investors as a group was due to some blue-chip stocks losing value after a period of sharp gains, IRG said.
Investor Phil Briggs made $204,000 but Auckland property investor Michael Friedlander lost $1.4 million.
IRG founder David McEwen has been watching the rich for years. In 1999, he established the smart money index to find out how well the wealthiest investors did.
"We have the rare situation where the smartest and richest investors in the country are falling behind the normal rate of market gains," he said.
Neville Glaser of IRG said the heavyweight investors were unlikely to even know their portfolios had suffered lately. "They're all long-term investors."
Active investors tended to do better when the sharemarket performed poorly but worse when the market was in a bull phase.
On the up?
What the wealthy investors are buying now:
* Contact Energy (Peter Masfen)
* Provenco (Todd family)
* Sealegs (Masfen and Cushings)
