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Demergers calculator

Calculate the cost-base of your shares in companies that have undertaken an eligible demerger.

Last updated 29 June 2023

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Demergers calculator

It will take between 2 and 10 minutes to use this calculator.

What you can do with this calculator

The Demergers calculator helps you to:

  • calculate the cost-base of shares in companies that have undertaken an eligible demerger
  • work out your capital gain or loss for the following demergers if you later sell shares
    • BHP Billiton Ltd – demerger of BHP Steel Ltd (renamed BlueScope Steel Ltd)
    • CSR Ltd – demerger of Rinker Group Ltd
    • Mincor Resources NL – demerger of Tethyan Copper Co. Ltd
    • Sonic Healthcare Ltd – demerger of SciGen Ltd
    • WMC Ltd (renamed Alumina Ltd) – demerger of WMC Resources Ltd
    • Mayne Group Ltd (renamed Symbion Health Ltd) – demerger of Mayne Group Ltd
    • AMP Ltd – demerger of HHG PLC.
     

Who should use the Demergers calculator?

Use the Demergers calculator only if you meet all of the following criteria:

  • you are an Australian resident for tax purposes
  • you own shares in a company that undertook an eligible demerger
  • you have only one class of shares in the head entity and the demerged entity (for example, all ordinary shares or all partly paid shares)
  • your shares are not held in an employee share scheme
  • any gain or loss you made on the shares is a capital gain or loss – this means that you held your shares as an investment asset rather than
    • as trading stock
    • as part of carrying on a business, or
    • to make a short-term or one-off commercial gain.
     

AMP Ltd demerger

For the AMP Ltd – demerger of HHG PLC, the Demergers calculator helps AMP shareholders – who held shares at the time of the AMP Ltd demerger in October 2003 – to calculate and display the cost-base report for the AMP shares owned after the demerger of HHG PLC and AMP Ltd on 23 December 2003.

The calculator takes into account shares acquired from the:

  • demutualisation of AMP on 20 November 1997
  • pre-listing purchase on 22 June 1998 for shareholders who participated in the above demutualisation
  • dividend reinvestment plans (various from 28 October 1999 to 28 October 2003)
  • share purchase plans (various from 15 June 1999 to 18 July 2003)
  • AMP rights issue in October 2003.

Other events have happened to AMP shares since this time that will affect the cost-base of these shares.

The calculator only calculates the cost-base as it was just after the HHG PLC demerger.

Who should use the Demergers calculator for AMP Ltd?

Use the Demergers calculator for the AMP Ltd demerger of HHG PLC only if you meet all of the following criteria:

  • you were an Australian resident for tax purposes at the time of the demerger
  • any gain or loss you made on the shares is a capital gain or capital loss – this means that you held your shares as an investment asset rather than
    • as trading stock
    • as part of carrying on a business, or
    • to make a short-term or one-off commercial gain
     
  • you did not acquire your shares under an employee share scheme
  • you did not participate in the institutional bookbuild under the AMP rights offer on 16–17 December 2003
  • you did not make a partial subscription for AMP shares under the AMP rights offer, and
  • you did not sell any of your AMP shares between 22 October 2003 and 19 December 2003.

This calculator can only be used for up to 21 parcels of ordinary shares in AMP Ltd. You cannot use it for reset preferred securities.

Cost-base reports obtained before December 2004

If you used the AMP Ltd demerger calculator before December 2004, your 'AMP shares – cost-base report' may be incorrect if:

  • your two largest parcels appear one after the other in the report
  • these two parcels contain a similar number of shares (to within 10 shares).

If your cost-base report has these features, you should re-use the Demergers calculator to obtain a new cost-base report.

What else you can do

Find out more about how a demerger affects your capital gains and what you can do.

For more information about particular demergers, see the list of events affecting shareholders.

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