By Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport
Macquarie and PSP Investments have done their victory laps following AirTrunk’s $24 billion-plus sale to Blackstone. Now it’s the turn of shareholders in Global Data Centre Group to pull out the calculators and start thinking about their next waterfront property.
Street Talk understands the ASX-listed group’s investors expect their piece of the pie to come in at $1.70 a share, after deducting AirTrunk’s debt and fees. GDC had owned about 1 per cent of AirTrunk.
Of course, the number has a few moving parts – primarily, AirTrunk’s precise debt load and Macquarie’s performance fees, which are expected to breach the billion-dollar mark.
But this column’s straw poll of GDC’s register suggests $1.70 is the consensus. Throw in its expected proceeds of $175.6 million from Etix Everywhere, a bit of debt that needs to be repaid at GDC level and some performance fees, and investors reckon there’s about $2 a share in net cash sitting on the balance sheet already.
All up, that’s between $3.65 and $3.75 per share cash that GDC investors reckon is coming their way when the Etix and AirTrunk deals settle
Cash box
These were GDC’s last assets, and the ASX-listed company is now a cash box waiting to be cracked open by the two deals completing. It has already sought ASX permission to pay it out via a buyback, and could also weigh a dividend.
But is GDC still worth dipping into now at $3.51 a share? This is where sharemarket investors will be probing FIRB approvals – which this column has noted are taking longer than usual – and when AirTrunk can expect to get its own ticked off.
Between $3.51 last traded price and $3.65 to $3.75 expected return, there’s still a decent 6 per cent-odd return – a bit higher if it is annualised – on the table for whoever can get their hands on the shares. But factor in the months-long wait, and it looks like last drinks have been called at AirTrunk’s after-party on GDC’s register.
The bulk of AirTrunk’s GDC bounty would be split among eight fund managers, some of whom bought in when GDC shares were trading below $2.
The list comprises MA Financial Group (15.96 per cent), Samuel Terry Asset Management (15.01 per cent), Wilson Asset Management (7.96 per cent), Tribeca Investment Management (7.47 per cent), Sandon Capital (6.30 per cent), and Investors Mutual, Harvest Lane and Australian Retirement Trust, which are each above the 5 per cent mark.
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