Retail investors lukewarm on BOQ

The share purchase plan for Bank of Queensland turned out to be a bit of flop. After setting out to sell $100 million in new shares, with a cap of $10,000 in shares per investor, the bank sold only $45 million.

This helps explain the bank's institutional placement conducted this week. BOQ sold $63 million in shares through the placement, with the shares priced at $7.64.

BOQ announced the plan for the share sale in the second week of December but with applications solicited over the course of January. Stockbroker ABN Amro Morgans conducted a number of investor presentations in capital city markets in a mostly unsuccessful effort to drum up demand.

The continued sale of shares by Linfox, formerly the bank's largest shareholder, during late December and early January, cannot have helped perceptions. BOQ said the bank's new largest shareholder, the French bank BRED Banque Populaire, supported the share placement.

In a media release yesterday BOQ said it recorded asset growth equal to 170 per cent of system asset growth in the four months to December and funded this growth from retail deposits.

Westpac, meanwhile, is soliciting applications from retail investors under its own share purchase plan this week and aims to collect $500 million.