22-Mar-2021: Just a quick comment for @MattGreen - Austal are an ASX200 company and ALL ASX200 companies will have both Vanguard and BlackRock on their share register simply because Vanguard and BlackRock run heaps of ETFs, some of which mirror the ASX200 (like BlackRocks's IOZ ETF) and the ASX300 (like Vanguard's VAS ETF). All companies that are in the ASX200 are obviously also in the ASX300. Because Austal is in the ASX200, it is held by those ETFs that hold all ASX200 companies, and that also includes ETFs that hold ASX300 companies, so both BlackRock and Vanguard will hold Austal for that reason.
I wouldn't read too much into those two fund managers being ASB shareholders beyond that.
Also, Macquarie Group may still own some Austal shares, but they ceased being substantial shareholders (meaning holders of 5% or more) back in early June 2020. Another fund manager, Vinva Investment Management also ceased being substantial shareholders of ASB one month later - in July 2020. Macquarie did not even make ASB's top 20 holders list as at June 30th last year, as shown at the bottom of this post.
Nor did Vanguard or BlackRock but both of those managers use banks as the registered holders of their shares - like J P Morgan, Bank of New York Mellon (BNYM), State Street Bank (SSB), NAB, Citi, UBS, HSBC, and Bank of America (BOA) Merrill Lynch, as can be seen in Annexure B of this Form 604 (Notice of change of interests of substantial holder) lodged by BlackRock with the ASX for ASB on 26-Feb-2021 (showing that they had increased their ASB holding from 6.11% to 7.27%).
Macquarie have not lodged any similar notices since their "Ceasing to be a substantial holder" notice back in early June 2020.
The current substantial shareholders of ASB are:
- HSBC Custody Nominees (Australia) Limited with 109,222,966 shares (30.62%);
- J P Morgan Nominees Australia Limited, with 75,729,127 shares (21.23%);
- Austro Pty Ltd with 32,307,692 shares (9.06%);
- Citicorp Nominees Pty Ltd with 31,868,745 shares (8.93%);
- National Nominees Limited with 27,102,862 shares (7.60%); and
- BlackRock Group with 4,185,123 shares (7.27%).
Austro Pty Ltd (at #3 above) who hold 9.06% of ASB is a company controlled by John Rothwell, ASB's Chairman, and the original founding Managing Director of Austal.
Three of the ASB directors do not hold any ASB shares, and their current CEO, Patrick Gregg, holds just 242,399 shares, but he has only been in that position since early January this year. Apart from Patrick and John, the only other director (from their 6-member board) that owns any ASB shares is Charles Everist with 80,441 ASB shares.
It is interesting that HSBC (with 30.62%) and J P Morgan (with 21.23%) together have a controlling stake in ASB - of 51.85%. That may have been due to a capital raising or two in prior years when HSBC and J P Morgan were underwriters for the cap raising(s) and ended up with large chunks of Austal that way.
I note that Austal were in a strong $272.4 million net cash position as at 30 June 2020, so debt does not appear to be an issue for them. They have no net debt (or didn't at the end of June last year).
In summary, ASB seem to be in good financial shape in terms of their balance sheet at least, however their board haven't been sinking their own money into buying the company's shares, as the only significant shareholder on their board is the company's founder (now their board Chairman). Additionally, they do not appear to have ANY fund managers with significant shareholdings, other than BlackRock (who manage ETFs). Finally, two banks own just over half of all of their shares, which is an interesting situation to be in. I wonder what their intentions are?
