I think this was a purely strategic move for Macquarie. They buy 37m units in return for the assurance that the project will not get scuttled by shareholders, and in the process incur a cost of around $15m.
(They do have a 37m liability in April but I've seen some commentary that the units will trade at around 50c-60c after the $1 call is paid, so they might lose only around$15m)
Personally I think it's a small cost to pay as the failure of the whole project would cause a lot of grief not just to Macquarie but to other parties as well such as Leighton, etc who might re-evaluate their relationship with Maccas in light of a disaster.
Then apparently there's a lot of fuss about whether MQG itself will get a $300m loan repaid if the project fails? Very messy stuff.
And I don't think Maccas will cop a lot of flak for chasing up retail holders, if it comes to that (who knows, they might work out a deal with the govt?) It's probably Brisconnections and the debt collection agencies they use who'll be in the spotlight.
From my understanding of the situation it seems like a common sense move by Maccas to take that 8% stake.
BCS Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
