Very quietly, Blackrock Group, the world’s biggest investment manager, has spent the best part of six months and nearly $900 million accumulating a 5% stake in Australia’s Amcor, one of our leading multinationals with packaging interests across the globe.
The stake was revealed in a substantial shareholding notice filed with the ASX yesterday morning.
Blackrock manages an estimated $US4.77 trillion for clients around the world, but especially the US.
In its ASX filing Blackrock said it reached the 5% level on Friday of last week when its buying took it to a holding of more than 57.95 million shares.
According to the filing the buying started in May, as the biggest shareholder, Capital Group of the US was completing the selldown of part of its stake from 9.36% to 8.33%.
That involved the sale of 12.7 million shares at an average of $13.66 each.That was nowhere near enough to fill the Blackrock order, but it appears to have seeded it in May.
Amcor’s 2015-16 annual report said that Capital was the only substantial holder in the company with that 8.33% stake. Blackrock’s disclosure yesterday means there are now two.
Another substantial holder, Invesco, advised in early May that it has sold enough shares for its stake to dip below the 5% disclosure level. Invesco said its stake had fallen to 4.972%. Most of the sales happened in April and the first few days of May.
Blackrock didn’t reveal an average price for its stake, but the prices paid were mostly from just under $15 a share to just over $16. At an average price of $15 a share, Blackrock has spent just on $870 million.
This stake in Amcor is one of the largest the investor has in an Australian company. It holds a 10% stake in BHP’s London listed shares. The stake of 213.014 million shares hasn’t changed for at least three years. It is worth more than $4.4 billion.
Amcor revealed a $US671.1 million net profit for the 2016 financial year for its underlying business, up 7.5% in constant currency terms.
Revenue was down 2% for the year to $US9.4 billion inclusive of currency fluctuations, while under the same measurement net profit was steady compared to last year.
Statutory profit after tax fell 64.1% to $US244.1 million due mostly to a one-off charge of $US348.9 million attributed to its Venezuelan operations.
That write down was revealed earlier this year so the sharp fall in statutory profit was not a surprise to local investors yesterday.
Amcor also warned in June that the problems in Venezuela and the write down would trim $US40 million from the 2016-17 profit.
Amcor shares dipped 1% yesterday to close at $14.99.
