Smart Hart shows how to walk on water

Graeme Hart owns all 6.4 million Rank Group shares and is the company's only director.

The banks must have huge confidence in Hart to be prepared to lend him most of the $3.27 billion. To offer that amount, without requiring him to do due diligence indicates they believe he walks on water.

Hart does walk on water in the sense that he is substantially bigger in New Zealand than Bill Gates is in the United States.

Hart's $3.27 billion Carter Holt bid represents 5 per cent of the market's total value of $65 billion. Even if he buys only half of the forestry giant, which is more than likely, his purchase price will be 2.5 per cent of the market's total value.

By comparison, Gates 1.02 billion Microsoft shares are worth US$27.4 billion ($39.32 billion) or just 0.17 per cent of the total value of the New York and Nasdaq stock exchanges.

NZX investors should have as much confidence in Hart as the banks, because his only other domestic listed company was a huge success.

Read More - Opens in a new window