Summerset shares gain after sales beat IPO forecasts

Paul McBeth

Thursday 10th January 2013

Shares in Summerset Group climbed 0.9 percent to $2.28 after the retirement village operator and developer beat the sales forecasts published in its initial public offer document last year.

The Wellington-based group sold 331 occupation rights for more than $100 million to village residents in the 2012 calendar year, from 231 sales and resales a year earlier, the company said in a statement. That means it beat its IPO forecast by 28 percent. Of that, 167 sales were new occupation rights, 25 percent ahead of expectations, and 164 were resales of existing rights, beating forecast by 32 percent.

“Summerset is continuing its strong growth. This week we opened our 15th village,” chief executive Norah Barlow said. “We expect to be making further purchase and construction announcements through 2013.”

Barlow has previously said the retirement village group expects to beat its IPO forecast net profit of $13.3 million and underlying earnings of $9.7 million in 2012.

Gisborne Milk Co-op loses High Court bid for survival

Gisborne Milk Co-op, the 66-year-old Bay of Plenty dairy supplier in liquidation, has lost a last-ditch bid to get back shares and supply arrangements with Fonterra Cooperative Group and keep the company afloat.

In the High Court in Auckland, Justice Rebecca Ellis turned down Gisborne Milk’s claim that Fonterra breached its empowering legislation, saying the Bay of Plenty firm made its own commercial decisions to surrender shares in the cooperative. The Dec. 17 judgment was published on the Justice Ministry’s website this week.

“It is difficult not to think of the shareholders Gisborne Milk as sailors caught in a perfect storm,” Justice Ellis said. “It is impossible not to have considerable sympathy for them. But none of their claims can succeed.”

Gisborne Milk was seeking reinstatement of its Fonterra shares and an inquiry into damages, saying Fonterra’s hardball negotiations and stance on whether the company could be a shareholder fell foul of the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act and constituted misleading conduct.

Satara boss takes parting shot at Zespri fees

Satara Cooperative Group boss Tom Wilson, who leaves his job at the end of the month, has taken a stab at Zespri International’s brokerage fees at the expense of growers in his last update to shareholders.

The Te Puke-based kiwifruit and avocado grower is still in talks with Zespri, which controls the nation’s kiwifruit exports, over its 6 percent brokerage rate on gross sale proceeds and 6 percent of FOB sales, which Wilson says is costing growers between $60 million and $140 million every year.

“I continue to be amazed at the politics, patch protection and commercial arrogance that prevents this money going to growers – this should have been sorted years ago,” Wilson said. “We have a smart single exporter structure that actually needs to just focus on grower’s commercial welfare to put a ‘lazy’ $1 per tray into your wallet.”

(BusinessDesk)

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