Peters: We won’t nationalise
NZ First leader Winston Peter has ticked off a colleague who claimed the party could buy back electricity shares below market value.
Yesterday morning Richard Prosser, NZ First’s state-owned enterprises spokesman, told an audience in Wellington that the party planned to bring all the major electricity-generating assets under a single ‘‘state-owned, statecontrolled’’ company.
‘‘So if you’ve got shares in Contact, get rid of them now,’’ Prosser said in prepared comments.
Asked by a staff member of Mercury, one of the partially privatised electricity companies how the party would fund the policy, Prosser said the holders would not get the market value.
‘‘They will be purchased back at whatever they were sold for, and no more.’’
Contact shares were sold to investors back in 1999 at $3.10 a share, compared with the $5.55 the shares closed at yesterday.
Shares in Mercury, Genesis Energy and Meridian Energy, which were partially privatised by the Government in 2013 and 2014, have all risen significantly since the initial public offerings.
Peters initially said the policy was long established, but later stressed that NZ First would only take back ownership by buying shares in the market.
He had spoken to Prosser directly about the comments.
‘‘We don’t believe in nationalisation,’’ Peters said. ‘‘On that aspect he [Prosser] is just not accurate and I made it very clear to him.’’
No-one would be required to sell their shares at a price they were not happy with.
NZ First would wait until the share price fell before entering the market, Peters said.
‘‘We think this cartel can’t go on and sooner or later when that is discovered, and with a whole lot of other things happening in energy, the price will come back,’’ Peters said.
‘‘I made it clear at the time that we would pick the time in the market to enter it. It’s still our view.’’
While Prosser’s comments could have potentially weighed on the shares in electricity companies if investors were worried the threats would be carried out.
Peters’ comments meanwhile could actually support the shares, as investors hope a coalition government that includes NZ First could be a buyer in the market, at least at a lower price.
Both Labour and the Greens have dropped their 2014 electricity policies.