Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan must be really sick of owning Maple Leaf Foods stock, because the pension plan has paid a steep price to shed most of its stake.
How steep? Teachers has taken a haircut of about $56-million relative to market prices to move a big chunk of its stock in two large sales.
In August, when it sold its first big block of stock to West Face Capital, Teachers got $8.25 a share when the market price was $9. On 13.7 million shares, that discount cost about $10-million.
Tuesday, as it sold another 21 million shares of Maple Leaf to a pair of investment banks, the pension plan manager had to accept a price of $10.50. The stock last traded before the sale was announced at $12.69. That's another $46-million in value lost.
The sale leaves Teachers with just shy of a 10 per cent stake in Maple Leaf, and signals that Teachers is throwing in the towel on any attempt to extract signficant value from its long-stagnant stake in Maple Leaf.
There had been speculation that Teachers would use its shareholdings to try to shake up Maple Leaf, but instead it appears the fund is just going to try to get what cash it can and move on.