gbt (hard to get) & sir brent roderick potts
http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2005/06/29/1119724698987.html
Veteran stockman whips up interest Date: June 30 2005
Strictly Private Christopher Webb
Hard-To-Get shares in GBST Holdings, the largest independent provider of securities clearing systems in the country, have given their owners very handy profits indeed of up to 30 per cent.
Underwritten by ABN Amro Corporate, the scrip was rationed out to fewer than 700 folk and the desired spread was achieved, with most of them holding fewer than 10,000 shares.
The float shares were handed out at $1 and on Tuesday, the first day of listing, they closed at $1.205 while yesterday they hit $1.30.
The vendors hung on to close to 80 per cent of the offering, and one other point of interest is that the outfit has a decent sort of record, unlike most of the garbage that has been foisted on punters by some in the stockbroking and merchant communities in recent years.
GBST extracted pre-tax earnings of $3.4 million on sales of $21 million last year, and for the current year the take is tipped at $4.5 million from sales of $22 million.
Not much sales growth in those numbers, but maybe there's business to be had in the 42 of the 81 stockbroking firms that are not on GBST's client list.
And adding a bit of lustre was the company's winning this week of Citigroup's third-party clearing service in Australia.
Meanwhile, most of the stock is controlled by directors in the form of Joakim Sundell, John Puttick and Stephen Lake and scarcely a recognisable name was on the share register.
But there was one, and it was none other than Sir Brent Roderick Potts, veteran deal-doer and still lining up a useful chunk of block trades as shown by his Southern Cross Equities' buying of Just Group scrip for share trader Solomon Lew.
Potts weighed in with 250,000 GBST shares, which is petty change in the Potts world but nevertheless represents one of the larger allocations of stock to an outsider.
Southern Cross placed about $4 million to $5 million of stock to institutions and the firm likes the stock.
Potts has a penchant for stocks linked to stock exchange turnover and it might be recalled that nearly seven years ago he was one of the few brokers to publish research on the Australian Stock Exchange before it listed.
Some stockbrokers made duffers of themselves by selling out far too early but Potts dubbed it a "cashed-up natural monopoly" and recommended all and sundry buy the stock up to $4.50 shortly after it listed.
GBST is obviously not in the same league, but nevertheless interesting to see the master broker on the list.
