Kiwi energy players brace for BlackRock ETFs’ mega-selldown
The US funds giant will unload Contact Energy and Meridian Energy stock worth hundreds of millions on April 19, due to a quirk in a thematic ETF.
It’s not often that companies get precise advance knowledge of a massive stock sell-off. But ASX-listed New Zealand power generation companies Meridian Energy and Contact Energy have a red-letter day in their calendar: Monday, April 19.
On that day, BlackRock’s pair of iShares clean-energy exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are going to sell something like 70 million shares in Contact (9 per cent of its free float) and 100 million shares in Meridian (just under 8 per cent). At current prices, that’s $456 million of Contact shares and $510 million of Meridian stock.
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