sydneycosta group holdings ltd shares jumped after the australian produce grower and marketer said private equity firm paine schwartz partners had acquired a stake shares in costa were up 13 at a252 in early trade on wednesday making the stock the best performing component of australias spasx 200 the surge gave costa a market capitalization of 117 billion australian dollars us8182 million costa on wednesday said that paine schwartz had obtained a relevant interest in 1378 of its issued securities including a direct 99 holding paine has indicated to investors that it will aim to increase its interest to 15 costa said at this stage the shareholding is seen as a longterm investment and paine schwartz has no current intention of making an offer to acquire control costa said costa added that paine could be interested in acquiring a board seat which would require approval by australias foreign investment regulator the asx 200 benchmark index was up by 04