NZX CLOSE: Tower leads NZ shares higher, F&P Appliances gains

Thursday 26th November 2009

New Zealand shares gained, led by Tower Ltd., after the insurer and wealth manager posted a 24% jump in annual profit and said its outlook is “positive.” Fisher & Paykel Appliances rose after announcing a new chairman.

The NZX 50 Index gained 11.92, or 0.4%, to 3127.31. Within the index, 32 stocks rose, nine fell and nine were unchanged. Turnover was $63.9 million.

Tower rose 6.6% to $1.94 after posting what chairman Tony Gibbs called "a first rate result." The company raised its effective dividend rate by 49%, adjusted for its rights issue in September.

"The outlook for Tower is positive," Gibbs said. "There will be opportunities which Tower is now in a position to take advantage of. We are very much looking forward to the next 12 months."

Gains led by Tower helped the NZX 50 eke out gains on a day when Asian equity markets drifted lower. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.5% to 9399.62 in early afternoon trading. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.3% to 4706.20.

Fisher & Paykel Appliances climbed 3.2% to 65 cents after chairman Gary Paykel, whose family founded the F&P group, announced he will step down and the company named former Fletcher Building CEO Ralph Waters as replacement.

Paykel’s departure signals a changing of the guard for the appliance manufacturer after long-serving CEO John Bongard left due to ill health.

PGG Wrightson gained 4.6% to 68 cents and NZ Farming Systems Uruguay rose 4.6% to 46 cents. Jewellery chain Michael Hill International rose 3.3% to 62 cents and children’s clothing chain Pumpkin Patch rose 3.3% to $1.89.

Pike River Coal, which is developing a coal mine in the South Island, climbed 2% to $1.02 after McDouall Stuart head of research John Kidd said resurgent growth in the Indian and Chinese economies would strain world coal supplies, boding well for coking coal producers such as Pike and government-owned Solid Energy.

"Global coal markets are rapidly returning to reflect their underlying fundamentals, and those fundamentals point to an increasingly severe mismatch in global supply and demand, particularly for metallurgical coal," Kidd said.

Guinness Peat Group rose 2.5% to 83 cents after media reports suggested the investment group was running its eye over Hanover Finance and may make a counter offer to Allied Farmers Ltd.’s all-scrip proposal.

GPG director Tony Gibb declined to comment. “I’ve been reading in the papers about how were supposed to be interested in it (Hanover) but it seems that everyone’s in on it but me” he told BusinessWire. “I don’t mean to be difficult, but I’m not going to comment on that at all I’m afraid.”

Allied Farmers tumbled about 13% to 27 cents.

Seeka Kiwifruit Industries, the company which handles 26% of New Zealand’s kiwifruit crop, jumped 12% to $3.35 after reporting a 2.9% decline in first-half profit on the write off its investment in research company Vital Foods.

Seeka lifted its forecast for full-year pretax earnings to be between $6.9 million and $7.5 million, compared to earnings of $5.6 million last year, after agreeing to buy a fruit packaging company for $24.2 million to boost its capacity.

Kermadec Property Fund Ltd., owner of seven commercial and industrial properties throughout New Zealand, climbed 8.5% to 51 cents after announcing it has an unconditional agreement to sell two properties for $7.7 million, freeing up funds to repay debt. Kermadec’s gearing ratio would fall to about 37.5%, it said.

Cavotec Holdings MSL, the engineering group, rose 1.9% to $2.70 after announcing that the Kingdom of Bahrain had chosen the company to supply ground service equipment for remote aircraft aprons at Bahrain International Airport, a deal worth about 30 million euros.

Businesswire.co.nz

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