Bill blathers on asset sales

It's National's AGM this weekend and it's gotten off to a bad start for Bill English as he tried to explain his asset sale plans and was tonged-up by some of his own people over the likelihood/certainty that shares initially bought by Kiwis will be on-sold to foreigners as soon as the price is right. English had no defence saying,
"Kiwis will still have the opportunity to on-sell the shares, otherwise it's not a market," and remember, to Bill, the Market is God.
The report from interest.co.nz is linked through the title of this post and I've pasted the comments that the article has attracted so far.
Not a good look Bill.

by Andrew R | 13 Aug 11, 11:18am

"it should focus on the fact energy prices may come down"
Sounds like back to 90s and an assurance by Max Bradford that privatising the electricity market would mean cheaper electricity for households etc. Some crap about the glories of the free market. Another Tui moment.

by andyh | 13 Aug 11, 11:35am

Yes indeed, English just lost a ton of credibility with me when he came out with that little gem.
The plan is the height of stupidity.

 

by Willy Foo Foo | 13 Aug 11, 11:37am

When Contact Energy was sold, the shares may well have started out being owned by Kiwis, but when a better price came along, who could blame them for selling them to the highest bidder. The result is that 2/3 of Contact energy dividends, in excess of $1billion worth, are now owned offshore, by mums and dads in distant lands.

by Ivan | 13 Aug 11, 12:41pm

So I like many thousands of other Kiwi's will buy as many shares as posible for a dollar each, wait for the price to go up a few bucks, then sell them off to some American company for a nice big profit.
Thanks for clearing that up Bill.