Why are Sydney Airport (ASX: SYD) shares such hot property today?
Well, you wouldn't think it from a glance at the Sydney Airport share price. The company finished trading at $8.71 a share, up just 0.11%. It hasn't swung too dramatically either. It opened at $8.71 a share this morning and went as high as $8.72 a share, and as low as $8.70 over the course of the trading day. Nothing one would write home about, you would think.
But looking at the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) trading volume data so far today, we see something quite remarkable. As we covered earlier this afternoon, Sydney Airport is currently the most traded ASX 200 share on the market. And by a mile too.
Today, a whopping 69.75 million Sydney Airport shares have been traded on the markets. That's more than triple the next company BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP) with just over 20 million shares traded.
As such, we can effectively call Sydney Airpot shares 'hot property' today.
So why might this company be experiencing such an elevated level of trading volume? Especially when its share price is so lethargic?
Why are Sydney Airport shares such hot property today?
Well, the answer might be a simple one. Tomorrow is officially Sydney Airport's last day on the ASX boards. And that means it is the last day that most ASX investors can own this company's shares. At the end of tomorrow's trading day, Sydney Airport will be delisted from the ASX 200 Index and the ASX boards.
This follows the long process of a consortium known as the Sydney Aviation Alliance (SAA) taking over the Airport in its entirety. The SAA is made up of IFM Investors and a few other super funds, including AustralianSuper and QSuper.
Its bid to acquire Sydney Airport at a price of $8.75 a share has now received the green light from regulatory authorities and Sydney Airport shareholders (as of last week). As such, the deal is going full-steam ahead and will effectively conclude at the end of tomorrow's trading day.
Sydney Airport has been listed on the ASX for 20 years, so this marks the 'end of an era' as it were. So the red-hot trading volumes we see this Tuesday are a likely consequence of investors making their final preparations for the shares to be taken off-market tomorrow.
At the current Sydney Airport share price, this company has a market capitalisation of $23.48 billion.
