MARKET CLOSE: Banking stock makes cautious debut in positive market

Tuesday 1st February 2011 1 Comment

Shares in the newly merged Building Society Holdings opened cautiously on the New Zealand sharemarket as investors held back, with the shares opening at 95c, before easing in a positive market.

The closing price of 88c, which matched the shares' issue price, valued the company at $264 million. Just 304,136 of the 300 million shares issued on January 7 traded hands.

Building Society Holdings (NZX: BSH ) was established by combining Pyne Gould Corp's Marac Finance, CBS Canterbury and Southern Cross Building Society.

The business is one of the largest finance companies now operating in this country, and it also has plans to obtain a banking licence.

Pyne Gould Corp (NZX: PGC ), parent company of Marac, lost a cent to a record closing low of 35c.

The benchmark NZX-50 index closed up 9.72 points, or 0.3%, at 3348.46, following yesterday's 14-point fall.

A weaker New Zealand dollar against the Australian dollar helped attract some overseas buying, which supported most leading stocks.

Fletcher Building (NZX: FBU ) rose 5c to $7.78, having lost 16c yesterday after announcing an increased bid for Australian plumbing supplies firm Crane Group, which the Crane board approved.

Contact Energy (NZX: CEN ) was up 2c at $6.17, Auckland Airport (NZX: AIA ) gained 3c to $2.27, casino company Sky City (NZX: SKC ) was up 3c at $3.31 and Sky TV (NZX: SKT ) rose 5c to $5.40.

Telecom (NZX: TEL ) fell 3c to $2.25.

Infrastructure investor Infratil (NZX: IFT ) rose a cent to $1.89 and networks company Vector (NZX: VCT ) was 2c higher at $2.50.

Other stocks to rise included seafood exporter Sanford (NZX: SAN ), up 9c at $5.09, Pumpkin Patch (NZX: PPL ), up 5c at $1.47, and Mainfreight (NZX: MFT ), 12c higher at $8.26.

The Warehouse (NZX: WHS ) gave up some of last week's gains to close down 10c at $3.55, Trustpower (NZX: TPW ) fell 4c to $7.20, and Air New Zealand (NZX: AIR ) lost 2c to $1.38.

Dual-listed stocks were firmer, with ANZ (NZX: ANZ ) up 38c at $30.68, Wespac (NZX: WBC ) rose 24c to $29.74, and AMP (NZX: AMP ) gained 3c to $6.85.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index was flat at 4753.

Earlier in the US, stocks rose on healthy earnings and signs of a strengthening economy, even as a surge in the price of oil highlighted the potential for increased political risk in the Middle East to upset markets.

For the month, the Dow rose 2.7%, the S&P 500 added 2.3% and the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.8%. It was the fourth month of gains in the last five for the three indexes.

NZPA

Comments from our readers

On 1 February 2011 at 8:31 pm Nan McConnochie said:

Why are we not seeing the adjustment of the 72% PGC holding in BSH reflected in the PGC share price. Odd that this isn't happening What is the rational, fear that the PGC stated plan to divest the PGW to Agria being diluted by other PGW shareholers accepting the Agria offer and the risk PGC has to sell on to the market