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this week's bulletin - Meanwhile, back in Australia … our long-held punt in Customers Ltd at last appears to be advancing. We bought into Customers (B, Feb 24) after the company redirected itself into the cash vending machine business, but promised growth was slow to emerge.

Now, shareholders will be asked at a meeting on December 8 to approve a business restructure that will hopefully expand its presence in the fast-growing cash vending machine business. As a consequence, the amount of paper on issue will blow out from 63.3 million issued shares to 159.3 million.

That may cause some shareholders to shout “Ouch”. But since the company was going nowhere, so what? In return for the restructure, the company will:

Boost its cash resources by $2.1m;
Transfer to shareholders, through an in specie distribution of shares in an unlisted subsidiary, its interests in a coal prospecting subsidiary likely to float in the new year;
Increase its ownership of its existing ATM business from 50% to 100%; and,
Acquire the services of a pair of leading executives in the ATM industry, Gregory Baker and Bradley Gerdis, who will jointly take a controlling stake.

Baker was chief executive of Cashcard Australia from its inception in 1993 and of its predecessor, Funds Transfer Services, since 1985. Cashcard was Australia’s leading independent provider of payment services until sold to the US Fortune 500 company First Data International in April 2004. Gerdis is a former ANZ executive. We’ll go along for the ride.