Vending machines rule the new-listings roost

By Nicholas Bryant

Friday 1st December 2000

A company selling vending machines is so far the only hot property of five new listings on the Stock Exchange's main board and junior board, the New Capital Market (NCM).

Since listing on the main board the share price of Vending Technologies has rocketed up 75% to $1.75 from its offer price of $1 a share.

The company's food and drink vending machines can sell hot and cold products out of the same machine and are fitted with proprietary software to enable remote monitoring.

Vending Technologies plans to have more than 4700 machines operational in Australia and New Zealand within 18 months.

Other new entrants on the investment scene include Cabletalk Group which listed on the New Capital Market at nearly double its issue price. But the share price has since retreated to 62c on Wednesday, still up 24% from its 50c issue price.

Cabletalk aims to buy a group of four businesses that provide telecommunications services such as the repair and maintenance of lines, cables, fibre optics and cell and microwave links. The group has Air New Zealand executive chairman Sir Selwyn Cushing as one of its directors.

Other new entrants on the NCM have not seen such an enthusiastic reaction.

The Caci Group has had a cool response; since listing its share price has dipped 13% to 44c from its issue price of 50c.

The group is to acquire Micromode Medical which holds the franchise for 16 Caci clinics throughout the country.

The clinics provide a range of appearance medicine and beauty treatments including laser hair removal, laser tattoo removal and collagen injections.

Another new entrant, Compass Communications Group, has been trading on par with its issue price of 50c. It has well-known businessman John Fernyhough as a director.

The group is to buy Compass Communications, which owns and operates a national and international telecoms network providing voice, fax and data services as well as being an ISP.

Newcomer Cadmus Technology had an inauspicious stockmarket debut last week, trading last at 15.5c, some 29% below its placement issue price of 20c. The company is an offshoot of Heritage Gold and offers a range of data-management services including database marketing, loyalty programmes, web development, e-commerce solutions and Eftpos terminals. It rivals big Eftpos player Advantage Group, another company being ravaged by a market still nervous about tech stocks.

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