ConnectEast

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ConnectEast
Type	Public (ASX: CEU)
Founded	Mount Waverley, VIC, Australia 2002
Headquarters	Mount Waverley, VIC, Australia
Key people	Tony Shepherd, Chairman John Gardiner, Managing Director
Industry	Transportation
Products	EastLink Motorway
Revenue	Unknown (2005)
Employees	Unknown (2005)
Website	www.connecteast.com.au

ConnectEast ASX:CEU is an Australian Proprietary Company responsible for the finance, design, construction and operation of Melbourne's EastLink motorway project.

Listed in the Australian Stock Exchange as The ConnectEast Group ( stock symbol: CEU), it won the tender in 2004 to finance, design, construct, operate and maintain the 39km Mitcham-Frankston project motorway, which links the Eastern Freeway in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne to the Frankston Freeway in Melbourne's south-east. This motorway, called EastLink will be designed and constructed through a joint-venture between Thiess and John Holland.

Essentially, this project will have an effective monopoly over fast motorway transport between the eastern suburbs of Melbourne and the Frankston Freeway in Melbourne's south east.

As a public listed company in the stock exchange, it is also one of the few infrastructural stocks that is restricted to a single asset.

In an announcement to the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) on 31st October, 2007 ConnectEast Group announced the distribution of 3.25 cents per stapled unit payable on 1 November, 2007.

As a Company that has the welfare of the shareholders at heart, ConnectEast provides for a program of reinvestment of the dividends called the DRP (Dividend Reinvestment Plan) where unitholders participating in this plan will be issued with units at $1.585, which represents a 5% discount to the daily volume-weighted average price for 20 trading days from 20th September to 18th October 2007. This DRP was subscribed by over 68% of the unitholders, who are of the opinion that there is a lot of "leg-room" for the share price to move up.