Wesfarmers and Coles have confirmed that the scheme of arrangement for the demerger of the Coles Group from Wesfarmers has been fully implemented.
This means that Coles shares have commenced trading on the ASX on a normal settlement basis and that holding statements are being dispatched to Coles’ shareholders today.
Both parties have confirmed that the number of Coles fully paid ordinary shares on issue is 1,333,929,696.
In an early statement to the ASX, last week, Coles also released an indicative statement of the company’s largest 20 shareholders.
Wesfarmers has retained a 15 per cent share in the supermarket giant, but is now the second largest shareholder, with HSBC Custody Nominees initially taking 19.74 per cent of the issued capital. Banks and financial institutions dominate the indicative list with JP Morgan, Citicorp and National rounding out the top five.
Coles has also confirmed the credit ratings it has been assigned. The public credit rating from Standard & Poor’s is BBB+ and is Baa1 from Moody’s with both organisations giving Coles a stable outlook.
Coles said: “As outlined in the Demerger Scheme Booklet, Coles’ strong balance sheet, attractive cash generation characteristics and market leading position in growing and resilient markets has supported strong investment grade credit ratings from leading global credit agencies.”