IFT - Infratil

[Bjauck]

I have a fairly large holding in IFT and I agree with huxley that they prefer controlling stakes. To date I have kept faith in IFT managament to provide longterm gains to their shareholders and here's hoping their long strategy with the Canberra Data Centre, Retire Australia & Renewables will bear fruit. However, I'm a bit worried that this could impact their divident payouts as they won't generate too much cash in the near future. Thoughts?

Oceania would have a higher dividend yield than MET. They could build up their stake and buy some of Macquarie's stake after the escrow period.

[artemis]

Looks like NZBus have lost some Wellington bus contracts to Tranzit.

OTOH the first test is under way of a new electric ex-trolley bus.

Full year results to be announced 18 May and assume there will be some mention of these events at that time.

[Kelvin]

Tranzit will have 60% of the Wellington market leaving NZBus with 28%

That must be less than half of what their Wellington market share is now. NZ bus not really the best business to be in...

Link http://www.gw.govt.nz/brand-new-buses-headed-for-wellington/

[bull....]

Think said somewhere on this thread once was never a fan of NZ bUS contibutes little return on investment. should have been ditched long ago

[artemis]

Think said somewhere on this thread once was never a fan of NZ bUS contibutes little return on investment. should have been ditched long ago

If the successful tender was several million dollars a year less than others, then maybe NZBus did not really want to win. Same thing happened in South Auckland where NZBus lost contracts to GoBus (no doubt helped by tax status of GoBus owners).

Might do better with the plan to convert trolley buses to electric and sell them off around the country.

[bottomfeeder]

Tranzit says they are going to build new buses, I wonder just where the old buses go. Must be so many accumulating in this country. Perhaps the depreciation write off on buses should be increased to 80%pa. Next time tranzit will lose the contract to someone else who is going to build new buses, etc etc. The system of tender, for contracts that require a lot of capital investment just stinks, and IFT should get out of it.

Disc not a holder of IFT, but do hold quite a few IFTHA. Hoping they are more secure than IFT.

[artemis]

Long release from IFT to the market this morning. Obviously seeking to reassure but the detail indicates that the risk was known. Only 3 routes were tendered for out of the 9 up for grabs, with some good reasons given why that was the case.

They still hold contracts for 80% of the services in the region (for now), against the max of 60% permitted under the rules.

[artemis]

Hmmm, the below headline in NBR (behind the paywall) is at odds with the IFT release to the market. Unless they are measuring 2 different things.

Infratil’s NZ Bus to lose almost two-thirds of its Wellington business - Fri 05 May - Family-owned Tranzit’s share of Wellington bus services will jump to 60% from 1%

[macduffy]

I've never understood why IFT were in the bus business in the first place - probably seemed like a good idea at the time, much as the European airports were! The fact that they've missed on these contracts is encouraging and shows that they're not going to tie up capital in low profit businesses.

[Zaphod]

I've never understood why IFT were in the bus business in the first place - probably seemed like a good idea at the time, much as the European airports were! The fact that they've missed on these contracts is encouraging and shows that they're not going to tie up capital in low profit businesses.

NZ Bus was formed with the vision that they would be able to shape an innovative and cost-effective public transport infrastructure themselves. The prevalence of the gross-contract model and the PTOM have placed the final nails in that coffin.

GoBus are the number one competitor for every urban transport operator in NZ, given they are an iwi-based business, they enjoy a significant tax advantage over all other operators.

I suspect that IFT's Snapper is not much longer for this world either, with the technically inferior Thales-system becoming the ticketing backbone of NZ's transportation networks.