Former Mayoral candidate Craig Lord has come out swinging against Wayne Brown’s comments about the Auckland Airport, saying the gaffe “didn’t surprise him”.
It comes after Brown told the council yesterday that its shares in Auckland International Airport would be reducing in value soon, forcing NZ RegCo, the New ZealandStock Exchange’s regulatory division, to put a halt on trading due to concerns Mayor Brown had inside information.
He said the airport company planned to seek a capital injection to fund a new domestic terminal.
The council currently owns 18 per cent of the airport company but would not be participating in the airport’s capital expansion, so those shares would reduce in value to about 11 per cent.
Shortly before 1pm, Auckland Airport said in a statement to the NZX that it had “no plans to carry out an equity raise and we have made no announcements to the market in this regard”.
‘’We continue to consult with airlines about our future infrastructure programme, which includes our priority project – the creation of a combined domestic and international terminal as part of an expansion to the existing international terminal,” the company said.
Joost van Amelsfort, NZ RegCo’s chief executive, told the Herald today the organisation has the right to apply a halt if it considers confidentiality may have been lost “in material information that might otherwise be subject to an exception from immediate disclosure, or if NZ RegCo considers a halt to be appropriate to enable an issuer to prepare and release information necessary to prevent the development of a false market in an issuer’s shares”.
“NZ RegCo considers the release of AIA’s [Auckland International Airport] statement appropriately addresses the concerns initially held arising from Mayor Brown’s reported comments at the council meeting yesterday.”
