BrisConnections ending investor furore

The chief of the company building the Brisbane airport toll road says negative
publicity about instalment payments by investors has taken the focus away from a
great infrastructure project.

BrisConnections Unit Trusts chief executive Ray Wilson said the trust had also
dropped all attempts to force unitholders to pay outstanding instalments.
"All of those previous actions have stopped, or are in the process of stopping," Mr
Wilson told Sky Business on Sunday.
"It has been damaging because it's diverted attention away from the fact that we
have a long term concession to develop arguably one of the most important pieces of
infrastructure in Queensland."
BrisConnections is building the toll road - stretching from the Brisbane CBD to the
airport - for $4.8 billion.
A consortium including Macquarie Group, Deutsche Bank and Leighton Holdings,
BrisConnections won the right to build the tollway in May 2008.
Stapled units were then sold in an initial public offering in July 2008, with
investors paying the first of three $1 instalments at the time, with two further
instalments due in April 2008, then in January 2010.
But the stock slumped to 41 cents on the first day of trading, then to 0.1 cents by
October 2008. The stock has since recovered to 14 cents, but only since another $1
instalment was paid.
Many retail investors bought the units thinking they were getting a bargain, without
realising that they would be required to pay a further $2 on each, making themselves
liable for further payments up to 2000 times the value of their investment.
BrisConnections had threatened legal action in some cases but has since dropped all
actions.
The 278 million defaulted securities, or 71 per cent of all the securities, were put
up for auction in June, but after none sold Macquarie and Deutsche took about half
each in exchange for loans to BrisConnections.
Macquarie now holds about 45.5 per cent of BrisConnections while Deutsche holds a
further 35.5 per cent.
"We have 182 unitholders now," Mr Wilson said. "Now we're dealing with those 182
unitholders taking the company forward."
Mr Wilson said he was focused on delivering the infrastructure as promised, and that
investors would eventually realise the value in the securities in due course.
"There's very large inherent value in this particular stock," he said.
"I think people will be rewarded for buying this stock."