Shareholders grin as Vector shares spiral

Tens of thousands of new Vector shareholders are waking up a bit richer this morning after the company's surging stock exchange debut.

Beneficiaries of the Auckland Energy Consumer Trust - anyone with electricity accounts in Auckland City, Manukau City and much of Papakura District - were invited to buy shares in a limited pool.

Because of high demand, the maximum allocated was scaled back to 1322 shares, worth $3146.

Once they started trading on the stock exchange at 11am yesterday it became clear that there was a lot of demand for the shares. Issued at $2.38 each, the price for each share quickly surged to $3.12 - a healthy 31 per cent premium.

Things soon calmed down and the price stabilised at a little over $3 each, finishing the day at $3.02, up 26 per cent in one day.

This would mean an $846 profit for anyone who sold their allocation on the first day.

Of the 47,000 new Vector shareholders, 32,000 are thought to have got their shares through the beneficiary pool.

Vector is owned by the publicly elected Auckland Energy Consumer Trust and 24.9 per cent is being sold to new investors.

There was a serious rift on the trust last year over a partial privatisation to raise money to buy NGC.

Three of the five trustees opposed the plan.

However, after a legal battle, the High Court barred opponent John Collinge from voting because he owned Vector bonds.

This left the remaining four trustees evenly split, but chairman Warren Kyd used his casting vote to push the partial privatisation through.

Mr Kyd and ally Karen Sherry were the only trustees to mark the float by attending a listing celebration at Vector's Newmarket headquarters yesterday.

Dividends are still being paid out to income beneficiaries, but will now be shared by the new shareholders.

Vector says that as a result of its purchase of NGC, dividends for Auckland power users are expected to be much higher.