Conroy's telecoms reforms: What did the Future Fund know?

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 15 September 2009 10:22

IT Industry - Strategy

The Australian Shareholders' Association is furious at the Government for forcing structural or functional separation on Telstra, and questions what the Future Fund knew when it sold down its Telstra shareholding.

Australian Shareholders Assocation CEO, Stuart Wilson, told AAP: "it is curious that the Future Fund sold so much stock immediately prior to this devastating announcement and perhaps worthwhile of a few questions from the market regulator."

Three weeks ago the Future Fund sold a third of its stake in Telstra for almost $2.4 billion. It still retains 11 percent of Telstra shares.

Wilson described the proposed legislative reforms - which in addition to putting Telstra under intense pressure to structurally separate, also strengths the ACCC's ability to reign in its market power - as "a giant kick in the teeth for Telstra shareholders,"

He complained that investors had bought shares in good faith from the Government in the last tranche of the Telstra privatization and now faced the prospect of the value of their investment being eroded significantly as a result of the new legislation.