That is a bizarre little rant and seems to completely misunderstand sound capital management decisions which need to be made according to circumstances at the time!! (
Daylight robbery of retail investors funds - Really!?!?)
Previous capital raise was done because it was necessary to ensure they met all capital requirements in the face of forecast economic doom and expected high level of provisioning. (Interestingly at the time we had many posters once again shouting about the end of the banks and that sp would never recover!!)
The fact the price was $14 was due to market concerns about our economy, it was not something orchestrated by the banks board
They simply had to act at that time!
Of course history shows us that things were not as bad as forecast and the banks are awash with cash, so all the banks need to now make decisions on capital management.
I am unsure where that places the discussions with Citi but it is possibly a dead duck for a number of reasons (if still a possibility perhaps they have other funding options)
I would have been happy for them to use capital to grow the business as long as it stacks up not just for the sake of it!!
Alternatively a share buy back (to me) is a better long term return to shareholders than a special dividend. It is an on market buy back so there is no logic about it being a windfall to instos, considering the instos would also be the biggest beneficiaries of a special dividend / capital return
NAB was (imo rightly) criticised in recent past years for maintaining too high a level of dividend payout ratio and had even underwritten dividend reinvestment schemes a number times to maintain the dividend level
Good to see the on market buy back is also intended to satisfy any dividend reinvestment scheme during the buy back period.
An On Market buy back seems to be a sound strategy at this stage and they have stated they will continue to asses options for return of capital to shareholders, so future plans may differ.
I am happy to see our share numbers to go the other way for a change......................
(20min delay)