Kiwiblog

The NZ Herald editorial:

The labour Party’s finance spokesman, David Cunliffe, raised some eyebrows last Thursday when he spoke favourably of allowing state-owned enterprises to form subsidiaries in partnership with private shareholders.

Could it be that Labour is relenting on the stern anti-privatisation stance it adopted under Helen Clark?

Alas, no. Mr Cunliffe was talking strictly of subsidiaries. It would be an enlargement of the state’s role in the economy, not a diminution of it.

Even the Clark Government was open to this idea. Trevor Mallard, urged it upon the SOEs when he was minister of state-owned enterprises, though nothing happened.

Mr Cunliffe, in his speech at Victoria University, cited Kiwibank as an example of a subsidiary that had added value to its state-owned parent, NZ Post. The next day he made it clear Kiwibank would be excluded from the envisaged private partnerships.

So alas, it is a policy from the Clark Government.

This policy will not answer the Stock Exchange’s prayers for blue chip listings of public utilities. But unless the National Party leadership has more gumption on that subject in a second term, there is not much prospect of SOE share floats from either of the main parties.

The bipartisan policy on no asset sales is I suspect unique in the developed world. And that is not unique in a good way.

Labour probably wants to sound more moderate and reasonable on a subject such as privatisation, even if its real motive is to increase state participation in the economy.

This is true, but they may find it hard to explain why they are pro-private sector investment in “new” assets ut 100% against in existing ones.

At least the policy Mr Cunliffe has revived, and the Government can readily endorse, opens the way for private enterprise to propose projects to SOEs and tap their resources. That sort of investment could be better for the country in the long run than passive private holdings in the parent utility.

No company should need additional capital unless it has something new to do. In that event, it is sensible to set up a subsidiary to do it.

With the benefit of private investors’ assessments of value, and the discipline of sharemarket accountability, the foal would outshine the horse. The state should open its stable and let all its enterprises reach their potential.

I agree.

The Herald reports:

The chairman of Solid Energy says at least part of the state-owned coal miner should be sold off to raise billions of dollars needed for new projects, including more mines.

John Palmer – who is also chairman of partially privatised Air NZ – said Solid Energy needed up to $10 billion in additional capital over the next five years, and should be partially privatised if National wins a second term in office.

That was the best way to provide the money, given the state of the Crown accounts, he told the Herald yesterday.

“I don’t think it makes a lot sense for the Crown to put several billion dollars into a company like Solid Energy where it can retain all of its existing ownership and leverage and external capital can provide the opportunities for growth. It’s very much a win-win situation.”

Solid Energy is not a monopoly like Transpower or NZ Post. It is not a utility- it is a competitive business undergoing commercial activities that are not guaranteed to be profitable.

If Solid Energy can not access extra capital, it will not be able to reach its potential, which may mean less tax revenue and less jobs in NZ.

But do we want the NZ taxpayer borrowing money to invest in Solid Energy, and assuming all the risk? I think Palmer makes a good case for that risk to be shared around.

The SST reported:

THE GOVERNMENT will become one of the biggest players in the commercial property services market following Quotable Value’s (QV) takeover of DTZ.

QV has been in negotiations to buy the New Zealand arm of DTZ, a large publicly listed valuation and property management company based in the UK.

Neither company was responding to calls on the subject last week, but the Sunday Star-Times understands that DTZ’s staff have been told the takeover will proceed and both sides have been putting the finishing touches to the deal.

QV is a state-owned enterprise and its takeover of DTZ will create a property services company with turnover of nearly $70 million, making its easily the biggest property services company operating in the commercial property market.

While in one sense it is good to see an SOE operating commercially and making good commercial deals, it concerns me that they do so with taxpayer money, and an implicit Government guarantee.

Much the same happened when Kordia purchased Orcon. A smart strategic buy for Kordia, and some useful finance for Orcon, but should the NZ Government own an ISP and a commercial property company?

The Government has promised not to see any SOEs during this term. I hope that they have a more flexible policy for the 2011 election, which would allow the Government to exit areas that are commercially competitive.

I now have some more info on Labour’s reaping of profits from energy SOEs, and contrasting that to Phil Goff now decrying a $236 million dividend.

I blogged earlier that over the last five years, the SOEs made $3.27b after tax. Going back for their full nine years, the figure is $4.47 billion.

I also have the dividend figures. So this is the money actually paid out to the Government, and excludes profit that was retained for investment purposes etc in new generation.

1. 2000: $255m
2. 2001: $236m
3. 2002: $290m
4. 2003: $148m
5. 2004: $154m
6. 2005: $250m
7. 2006: $949m
8. 2007: $428m
9. 2008: $383m
10. Total: $3.09b

So its okay to take a $949million dividend payout in 2006 but wrong to take dividends a quarter that amount in 2009.

Again I’m not saying that the level of dividends is right at the moment, but when you raked them in during times of massive surpluses, it is a bit rich to do a sudden mea culpa and say that they should be much lower during a time of huge deficits.

I’m very cynical of Labour’s new stance on state owned power company dividends. The reality is that during a period when the Government enjoyed massive and record surpluses, Labour took in hundreds of millions of dollar in dividends.

And then suddenly within a few months of losing office, they now say it is wrong to do so – at a time when the Government is now running massive and record deficits and any reduction in dividends would be far more difficult.

I’m not arguing for the energy SOEs to price gouge – far from it. The sector needs reform. But there does need to be a return on capital that at least matches the cost of financing crown debt.

Labour also seems to be confused about the difference between dividends and retained earnings:

“Labour can and will stop price gouging. We will not demand excessive dividends coming back into state coffers above what is needed for investment in new generation.”

The dividends do not fund investment in new generation. It is almost the opposite. It is the amount of profit that you do not pay out in dividends that is used to fund new generation.

I’ve just added up the total net profit after tax for the six state owned energy companies for the last five years, and they were:

1. 2004 – $406m
2. 2005 – $561m
3. 2006 – $1,230m
4. 2007 – $622m
5. 2008 – $451m
6. Total – $3.27b

So under the last five years of Labour, the state made a profit of $3.27 billion (after tax) from the energy sector. And again, this was at a time of record crown surpluses. I don’t have handy how much was paid as dividends, but people should remember the $3.27b when Labour go on about excessive profits. Over their total nine years, it might be as high as $5b.

Trans-Tasman has some good advice for the Government in discussing the ACC funding issue:

Which may be why the Nats have gone coy on making Michael Cullen the Chairman of Mighty River Power’s Board.

They also recall John Tamihere’s famous comment about Cullen’s ability to “cut a deal on a piece of legislation, he can change a single word in a piece of legislation without those other bastards [coalition partners] knowing about it, and it melts down everything they wanted.”

If it happens with coalition partners, imagine Cullen running an SOE under a National Govt.

That is a good reason, plus the angry horde of National Party members who would encircle the Beehive and try to burn it down if they appointed Cullen as an SOE Chair this year.

Gordon Copeland is in the Dom Post saying the Kiwi Party advocates floating 20% of SOEs’ shares to release about $5 billion for infrastructure.

As reported yesterday, the public are getting sub-standard information on SOEs, because they are 100% Government owned.

From the Dom Post:

A parliamentary report has given a damning assessment of the monitoring and valuation of state-owned enterprises, describing the lack of transparency as “indefensible”.

This has prompted NZX chief executive Mark Weldon to offer free listings for five per cent of SOE shares so the market can enforce a higher degree of transparency and accountability.

The transparency and discipline listings would bring are an excellent reasons to have some private ownership in the SOEs. The public would actually get more and better information on the billions locked up in the SOEs.

Every year Treasury and the CCMAU publish a statement of corporate intent providing information such as shareholder rates of returns. There were no statistics included in the statements in 2007 and 2008.

The committee said it had been told by officials “informally” that satisfactory portfolio performance data was not published because of a lack of resources.

The report said this implied that portfolio performance and public accountability were not considered relevant or important, respectively.

Again ownership does not translate to accountability.

The committee said it was concerned because Government documents, particularly the State-owned Enterprises Act, state the main aim of an SOE is to be as efficient and profitable as a comparable private company.

The committee said if Treasury or the CCMAU lacked the resources to do the analysis, they could put the work up for tender.

One funds research analyst said the private sector “couldn’t do a worse job even if we were drunk in charge”.

A possibility that can’t be ruled out

The most recent financial statements value the Crown’s interest in the 18 SOEs at $23.5 billion at June 30, 2007, the equivalent of 40 per cent of the $59 billion market capitalisation of the New Zealand sharemarket at June 2008.

Issues like this are not sexy but can be vitally important.